And Then I Fell a Black Veil Brides Fanfiction told by Andy Biersack
by DreamQueen53
Summary: Everyone loves the Black Veil Brides song, "Fallen Angels", right? Well, yeah, all except the singer, Andy Biersack, who becomes all to literally acquainted with the term after he discovers a good portion into his adult life that he had been tailed by a demon for most of his life. Stalker, creep or simply a die hard fan, but Andy is literally DYING to get away from this one. ;)
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue… **

An old woman with flowing white hair pulled back into a messy braid whose brittle hands held a steaming cup of black coffee sat in a dimly illuminated living room on a rather old couch stained with peculiar black ink that blotted on the deep red upholstery every now and then like tears.

Her beautiful grandchildren-the first eight, the other two years of age-where around her. The smallest one, Annabelle, was sleeping in a play pin to the left, and to the right, a handsome young boy named Andrew saw reading a story in a small bookshelf crevasse by the heavily curtained window, humming very quietly to himself.

The woman cleared her throat, coughed once, and then said softly, "Andrew?"

She waited for the boy who contended to blatantly ignore her coo like he didn't even hear her in the first place. She sighed, "Andy?" she tried again. This time, the youth smiled and rose to his feet in quick response to his nickname.

"Yeah?" he asked in a sweet voice as he stood above her.

She chuckled, "So tall. Just like your grandfather."

The young boy raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, "it that good?" he asked.

The woman smiled thinly, and nodded at him slowly, "of course it is."

She stood silent for a moment while Andrew waited for her to speak again. She would let him wait. Waiting was a good skill to have. She took a very slow drink of her coffee and let the bitter liquid wallow around her mouth for a while before she swallowed, coughed once more, and asked, "Do you want to hear a story?"

Andrew, knowing the basic dark principles of his grandmother's fairy tales, had to take a short time to think of whether or not he wanted to hear about Clifford the slithering black demon or Morikis the metal monster. He had found her stories very intriguing from a young age, but sometimes found it rather difficult to stomach the vast spectrum of description she used in the house with no lights ever turned on-he wasn't even sure if the outlets on the cool walls worked.

Finally he made the decision, "Yes, I _would_ like to hear a story grandma."

He plopped down at her feet and she grinned, "Good."

"Which one is it this time? Can you tell me about Billy the Grave Keeper again?" he suggested.

She shook her head, which surprised the boy. She usually adhered to any particular story he wished to be told, but she now had a stern look on her face that told him not to beg.

"No. Tonight, I am going to tell you a new story about a…a man." She said, stuttering at the last part as if the simple term of "man" was too dismal for the protagonist of the story.

"A man? _Just_ a man?" Andrew asked in shock.

"No Andy, not _just a man_. I'm talking about the specific gender of this person. He was biologically a man." She clarified, "But he was…he is…extraordinary and wild. And…deadly." She laughed to herself like remembering the punchline to an old joke, and a lower, more sinister undertone laughed along with her. Andrew scanned the dark room. He couldn't see anyone there. Then again…he really couldn't see.

He looked back at his grandmother, "Are you crazy grandma?" he asked suddenly.

She raised one gray eyebrow and looked at him with a sly smile, "Of course I am. But that's the only way he'd keep coming around. If I went sane, he'd leave."

"Who'd leave grandma?" he asked nervously. This moment was the ultimate reason he didn't like grandma's stories. Weird things always seemed to happen when she told them, like they bordered on some truth he wasn't supposed to hear. It made him scared of things like fireplaces and cemeteries that no normal boy his age was afraid of. And if the man he was learning about was, indeed, deadly…then what would he find himself fearing next?

As if in response to his thoughts, a fluttering sound, heavy and strong disrupted the still. He looked around once more, and felt something tug at his heart, "How does your story start?" he asked quickly.

Eighty six year old Juliet Biersack grinned and leaned in close to her grandson's face, "it _begins_ with the_ end_." She whispered.

**Chapter One…**

_Follow me._

Sunlight rose my tired bones like…I don't know. Something inspiring that I'd usually come up with if it wasn't 6:00 a.m... My sheets are so soft and the little bubble of blankets I lay in is so freaking warm. The idea of getting up and doing stuff seems like hell.

"Andy?" I hear. Just ignore it. You're still asleep. I say to myself.

"Andy! Get up." I recognize my girlfriend, Juliet, and her voice ordering me to stop being lazy.

I sigh in protest, and she leaves. SCORE! I think. Ha, ha, right, like I'm getting left alone. My blanket suddenly gets ripped away and in the same moment, something freezing and slippery is placed on the small of my bare back.

I naturally go flying off the bed like some deranged bird and end up on the ground with my laughing girlfriend standing triumphantly above me. "Okay, okay. You win." I groan, pulling myself to my feet by grabbing her and using her as a ladder, wiping the icy water from my back in her hair.

She handed me coffee and shook the rumples I caused out of her sleek collection of long brown locks. "Thanks." I sigh, looking to the carpet and seeing the little bastard that had woken me.

"Ice cube? Really?" I asked, sipping the drink.

She shrugged, "Jake just called, you where late and not moving so…ice cube." she agreed.

"Late?" I ask to no one in particular and glance at my alarm clock. It wasn't six anymore. It was 6:55.

"How…how do I manage to lose an hour just trying to sleep?" she shrugged and stretched to her tippy toes to kiss me on the cheek. "Get dressed."

I go ahead and sigh one more time, just for shits and giggles, "Okay mom."

She glanced back at me with furrowed brows, "gross."

I proceed to shower, dress, eat, brush, comb and go within twenty minutes and not a minute later. Maybe. My car is beautiful as usual, all sleek and black and shiny. It runs like a dream too, going easily from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds.

I start the engine and it purrs at me like usual. I pull out of the driveway of my house and start to drive down the street. About halfway down to the turn, I realize there is a really creepy ass semi-truck looming with its Brights on in the middle of the day only a few house's away from mine.

"That's….creepy." I mutter as I near the stop sign. I decide to ignore it. It's not causing me any harm, and it's probably just a neighbor's brother or something.

I turn on some of the raw tracks of our new album and go over some ruff spot me and the guys didn't get to fix a few days ago.

Could probably use a shorter word there….ooh that was not a good cord. CC's just a little too loud, you can't hear Jake, maybe-," my thoughts get brutally interrupted but a harsh screech of an industrial sized bull-horn.

I glance in the rear view to catch eyes with this really old trucker driving the same semi I saw in front of the curb by my house. Then he turned, and just like the he was gone. I gulp. There wasn't even a street where he'd veered off.

I pull onto the highway with the ghost-truck still fresh on my brain and once again feel uneasy. There were no cars. A highway, in the middle of L.A. No cars.

"What the fuck?" I ask myself as I drive freely in the middle of a two way street. No cops, no cars, not even people. Confusing as the day started, I really don't know what's going on here.

Jumping to conclusions wasn't the way to go though. Just ignore it…get back in your fucking lane. I tell myself. The wheels turn and I mindlessly pull back into the correct lane, driving half-awake.

Then out of nowhere, the truck was behind me again, frighteningly close and still pulling closer. Jesus. Who was this guy? I'd only saw him once, and it was from a distance, but I felt like I'd done something like this before for a couple moments as I sped mercifully to stay ahead of the truck until I saw the pull off for the studio.

Then I suddenly turn like a jack ass and end up stealing in the parking lot of the recording studio panting like an idiot and watching for the truck to either follow or go past. It did nether. It was gone, again.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two…

Faint Memories.

Stomping into the studio as rattled as I was wasn't a good idea on account of my lateness already having the other guys on some sort of rave, but I didn't want to waste any more time sitting in my car waiting for some crazy trucker to find me, so I go in.

Actually run, the slow to an agonizing stomp at the door and walk in glaring at my hands and breathing crazy. The first one to say anything is Jinxx, who simply says, "Uhh…Andy?"

I look up and smile, "sorry I was late. Crazy morning." I inform them.

They all look at each other, "well…obviously."

I can't think of a response, which is strange for me, but I eventually just shrug and they all look at each other again. "Kay…well did you review the tapes?" Ashley asks.

I pull myself out of my little "I can't speak" rut and nod, "yeah I did."

From there recording when regularly, and I basically forgot about the truck until I left well into the evening with new tapes to listen to. I walk out and get into my car, only to find a blue teddy-bear that had been set on fire and burnt on my passenger seat.

It's interesting, I'll give the culprit that, but I don't like toys, so I throw it into a trash can as I pull out of the lot and then roll my window up tight. The highway is no longer empty as I start driving which is awesome in a really annoying way. I had not been on the road for 10 minutes and I got to the studio, now it's going to take me a good thirty to get home.

Not my day. I do as any really agitated person would do in this situation and start illegally weaving through traffic the best I can without getting arrested. I end up at the head of my street about ten minutes later and start driving down the road.

And then…there the truck is again. Right behind me, Brights leering at me, and his old face that I couldn't really see expressionally hell bend on running me off the road. I start speeding. I really don't want to die in the wrath of some creep in a truck. I see my house coming into view and I feel a flutter of hope obscured by the snarling sensation that this guy will know where I live if I pull into my driveway.

I don't have a choice. If I don't pull in, I'll really be in trouble, so I turn sharper than I normally would consider sane and squeal into the garage port. As soon as the engine turns off I jump out of the seat and bolt into the house while the truck still rumbles in front. I notice how easily it stopped in front of the correct home even though I sporadically swerved into the driveway like someone on crack.

I almost haul right into Juliet as I run into the house, panting again. She puts her hands on my shoulders and stops my progress, "Andy? What's wrong?" she asks. I think about it for a moment and glance out the window as nonchalantly as I can manage. I feel a bit foolish. Whatever I'm freaking out about, it really isn't _that _bad, but I still feel threatened by this trucker. She waits for my response as I think about telling her or withholding this knowledge until it picks up again.

After a moment, she clears her throat. I glance back down at her, try to smile. She just ends up looking afraid. I must be doing something talented with my face.

"What's wrong Andy?" she asks again. I gulp. The truck is gone now; she'll think I'm going nuts. Still the past day comes spilling out of my mouth like vomit and by the looks of it; she could barely keep up with the antics I experienced.

Sure enough, she does look like she's sure I'm losing it at the end of the rant. By this point, I really wish I'd kept the creepy toy that had been put on my passenger seat. Just as proof. I hadn't though, and I have to live with that as she attentively asks me questions about the occurrences for the rest of the night.

She seems like she actually believes me by the time we lay down to go to bed because before the whole "laying down" thing, she crept around the house, locking all the doors, windows and other entrances. Then when we ended up in the bedroom, she locked _our _door. "Well aren't we a little paranoid?" I ask.

She shrugs, "you freaked me out with your weird trucker story."

I smile. "You're welcome."

She shakes her head and flops on the bed next to me. She sighs and turns off the light, and then we both fall asleep strangely fast considering that I'd been tailed by a truck the whole day.

**…**

This morning I woke up on time, which is good because I get the feeling Juliet was just waiting to drop another ice cube on my back, but she didn't get the chance. I actually woke up a little bit before my alarm went off and was in the shower before she rolled out of bed. She was brushing her teeth with some massively impressive bedhead as I got out and began to dress and stuff. She was just getting her coffee as I was putting on my coat to leave. And as I was walking out the door I got a text from Ashely informing me he'd be at the studio in about a half hour.

In short, I was early. Now I sit in the seat of my car, searching for my tape and taking no particular jump on time since I'm the earliest to rise out of the five members of the band. I start my car when I find my tape and listen to some new tracks from the record as I cruise down the sleek gravel of the street. I pull onto the highway. It's empty again. I really don't understand why or what's going on, but I'm definitely not complaining.

I sort of drunk drive for a while and swerve lanes to pass the time as I slowly make my way to the studio, and then I stomp on the brakes at the sight of something that put my stomach on edge. I get out of my car in the middle of an empty highway and walk up to what I stopped for.

A burning teddy bear, blue and identical to the one I threw away yesterday. I stomp out the flames and gingerly pick it up to examine it. I eye it for a long time, probably longer than I should, then I walk back to the car, bear in hand. _I'm keeping it to show Juliet. _ I say to myself as I start driving again. I'm not swerving anymore, I'm watching for the truck. It's like when you're in a haunted house and you haven't seen one of the actors for a while, but you know their right around the corner waiting for you. I haven't seen the truck yet, but I'm sure it's there, just outside the periphery of my vision.

My radio hisses, and the track stops short of the chorus. I start fiddling with it and then eventually just turn of the radio in defeat, then realize the car is vibrating. I look up and freeze. The truck is waiting behind me, so close that the behemoth engines roaring are actually making the full body of my car shiver. How had I not noticed this earlier?

I immediately shoot forward without any regard for road safety rules or my common sense and find myself closely tailed-yet again-by this creepy trucker. I get a good glance at the guy, but only from the nose down. He has scars all over his mouth and is covered in pale gray skin. Nothing about him seems natural, he's like a Frankenstein reject. I put-as they say-the petal to the metal and pull ahead just enough to get a license plate number. I mentally repeat the pattern of numbers and letters over and over again as I speed along as fast as my vehicle can slide along the street.

I have no choice but to keep speeding. I haven't seen the turn off to the studio yet-I'm not even close to it- and turning was a terrible idea at the speed I'm holding, so I just keep going.

My knuckles are pale white and ache dully I'm holding the steering wheel so hard. My breathing is shallow and I fear passing out in the midst of a high-speed chase. Even my body is strained against the locked seatbelt like I'm mentally trying to accelerate faster than the car itself. I glance at the speedometer and gawk at both my gross speed of 150 miles per hour and the trucks easy ability to keep up with my gross speed of 150 miles per hour. It even goes faster than I am.

I can hardly believe it but it is surely a fact as it pulls up right next to me and even slightly ahead. The side profile of the driver is even more grizzly than the bottom half of his jaw; it stuck out in ugly patterns and his cheek looked like it was rotten.

I take my chances and slow down suddenly, just in time too. The truck started to veer to the right and was attempting to pull the old side-car-ramming you see in movies. I thought that he was going to miss me and I could speed away while he still bulleted forward, but sometimes thoughts are just there to tease us because I feel this heartbreaking shutter accompanied by a sick squeal as the back of the tanker rams against the hood of my car. The wheels shutter and all of the sudden I'm spinning, so fast the scenery around me makes me sick. This is the first time I've grown sick of my city. Literally.

I remember the movies where they counter a spin out with an opposing force to halt the car, so I turn my wheels away from my spin. The car screeches, putters, tiers shred, the car protests and almost flips over and eventually stops in the dead center of the highway, jerking me rather violently against the strain of the seatbelt and causing the whole world to turn into a blurry mush for a while. Never do what Hollywood tells you too.

My thoughts stop. It's like I'm not working anymore. Then the first thing that registers is pain. Aching pain in my neck. I feel like I just got rung out like a dishrag, and I'm about as useful too. Then my vision comes back in the clarity you only get upon a strong dose of pain and sizeable amount of fear, cleverly mixed with unmistakable human rage and thrown into a bin only accessed in great distress.

We commonly call this adrenaline_-real_ adrenaline. Not the shit you get while watching a good movie or something, no, _this_ is an adrenaline rush and it. Is. INSANE. I feel like I could throw a car despite my motionless stance in this particular attempt at one, and my anger is only fueled when I see the disaster that _was _my car.

The front is crumbled like old tinfoil, the engine barfed black smoke and the tape I'd just received with the most resent of all Black Veil Brides music was most likely destroyed along with my normal sense of right and wrong. The truck is sitting right in front of me, triumphant, facing me with no shame and my general conscience and normal nature is overruled by my secondarily much more violent nature.

I pull the door knob and slam it open with all my pressing strength, then stumble onto the streets looking more drunk than sober to stand in front of my once beautiful Bat mobile. I don't really know what I was planning on doing when I decided to stand in front of this truck like the tank man, but the first thing that comes bellowing out of my mouth is, "HEY, JACKASS!" and only continues with, "YOU FOLLOWED ME ALL OVER MY CITY AND INDANGERED MY LIFE, BUT YOU'RE STILL HIDING BEHIND THAT STEERING WHEEL IN YOUR FUCKING TRUCK LIKE A LITTLE BITCH. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, COME OUT HERE, AND DEAL WITH ME LIKE A FUCKING MAN!"

Then I get the fullest image of the driver I'd ever hoped for and it's just awful. Putrid. Like seeing something fresh out of a horror film. The very first thing that fronts my mind is his eyes. One pasty blue and droopy, the other vibrant yellow, the color of piss, and wide. I've heard of a condition called Heterochromia which means two different colored eyes, but this is nothing like that. This man's whole face seems to be constructed from several different people's skin, each a different level of rotten and each a little more or less gray then the last. The two slabs of skin his eyes where made of actually looked like one from a young woman and the other from an old ass man. I have never seen yellow eyes before though.

Even the man's hair makes me think of the same whips I'd seen on documentaries where they'd found a long since dead body and such. The very worst part is I feel like I've seen this man before, a long time ago, and defiantly would be seeing him again. But I can't place my prior sighting. It's almost like I shouldn't remember, but I do.

Then this ominous feeling sets in. I know somehow that no matter how awesome, no matter how badass I am, it wouldn't matter. Even if I was fucking Batman I know this guy could gank me with both hands behind his back and his patchwork eyes covered with duct tape and still keep his ground long enough to spit on my grave. That was not clever word play either, this man obviously had no problem with murdering me and I have the feeling that he won't play fair.

As if in response to my thoughts, the man smiled to reveal sharp yellow teeth that made me wonder if I was crazy and revved his engines twice.

The thing about me is I'm dumb. I do things I shouldn't, I make bad choices, I pick fights with people I shouldn't. Not to say that picking fights of any kind is okay, but still. But I'm not stupid. I don't pick fights with people that I won't walk away from and this is obvious how it's gonna end, so I tuck my balls and get in my stupid tin can of a car, drive the rest of the way to the studio in both silent fear and anger.

As soon as I show up, I can feel the other guy's eyes on me and my once-car. I probably look terrible. I stay in the car for a second. The first thing I do is write down the license plate number that I kept repeating even in the midst of a terrible spin out. I look at the numbers for some time. They really don't seem like a real plate number. Maybe I read it wrong. Regardless I pull out my phone and call Juliet who listens intently as I sort of spit the past little bit at her in a jumble of swear words and Dr. Seuss type abbreviations.

She is pretty rattled now and really wants me to come home but I don't really want to deal with the fact that I now have a world class ass-hole stalking me. So I get out, ignore her many texts blowing up my phone-I don't know why I called her- and walk into the studio, still suffering from a lot of whiplash.

They start to ask me all these questions, but after I start explaining, they get faces similar to Juliet's when I first informed her of my new friend and I choose to stop before I have six people calling the police for me. They kept asking be questions for a while, but I persisted to ignore them and now we are going about regular business like nothing happened. It may seem strange that I'm not calling the police or something, but I have to deal with it when I get home, so why ruin the day for the rest of the band too?

So my hours went by with a sort of drag to it, we didn't do much with the tracks today besides working with some choral arrangements to accompany some of the songs, so I ended up sitting in the control room drinking a beer watching our recorder pick up the random noises the few singers we brought in made as they warmed up.

Now I have to leave. I have to admit I'm nervous to even get in my car as of today, but I have to get the junk heap home somehow. Also _I_ have to get home. I could always get a ride from one of the guys…but then I run the risk of getting _them_ hit by a truck.

I have to chance it, so I get in my car and turn it on. It shakes. I really doubt repairing it would take much, it wasn't _that _bad but it was still infuriating. I drive out of the lot as slow as I can and check on the bear I stole off the road earlier. It's still there, I still have proof.

Driving home was a whole new experience since everything that moved set me on edge, and when I let go of the wheel to get out, I notice beads of sweat running down the leather. Wow. I'm not scared at all.

The second I walked in the door Juliet ran up and gave me a kiss. It was sweet, but also not usual. It's like she was expecting me to come back handicapped or something. Honestly so was I.

I didn't call the police, I really doubted they could do anything, but I did call the repair shop to get a price estimate. It's not nearly as bad as I anticipated. Juliet and I end up watching the 1980s batman movies all night for absolutely no reason, so now it's like 12:40 at night and we're getting ready for bed. Oh wait the bear!

I forgot to show her the bear. I drop what I was holding, which was just a toothbrush, and run outside, grabbing the evidence, locking the door and bolting back inside as fast as my legs will allow.  
Juliet looked very confused when I stomped in and threw a torched children's toy at her feet. Then she just got antsy when I told her _why _I had it. She picked it up and eyed it for a while, then sighed and said she'd come to bed soon and that I need to sleep and she just needed to check some things, yada, yada.

She's totally calling the cops.

That's fine, I'm not gonna stop her if it'll calm her down, but I really doubt the license's integrity as much as I doubted my own ability to fight the trucker. Just a feeling.

Juliet's POV.

I was pretty scared for the life of my boyfriend when he called and said he'd been attacked by a random trucker, but obeyed when he ask me not to call the police. I thought he meant he was gonna call them later. But when he got home he elaborated on his plans _not _to report the attack and just get the car fixed.

He's crazy. Now he brings in this creepy doll and says he's seen it twice. I could swear I've seen it somewhere else through. A picture maybe? I don't know. I _was _originally going to let him not call the cops, but now I just think it would be stupid not to. So I went downstairs with my cell, I know he left the paper with the plate number on it in the kitchen. I'm just going to call, and then not tell him I called. He'll probably get interviewed by the detectives later on, but for now he won't know I did anything.

I walk into the kitchen and see the paper, so I dial up the numbers 9-1-1 and put the ringer to my ear. As it buzzes at me, I examine the number and walk to the window in the front room. I gaze out, and it's dark. Of course it's dark, but it was a little unnerving that it got dark even though it was like midnight. Right now everything's unnerving.

I hear a man's voice "911 what's your emergency?" I open my mouth to answer, and stroll away from the window, letting the curtain fall into place again.

"Hello, My-," I get cut off by the grumble of a heavy engine.

"Yes?" the man pressed.

I ignore him for a moment and walk to the window again. "ma'am?" he asks. I push the curtains aside and freeze just for a second. The only thing the cop hears right now is engines and my breathing, but I can't help it. This _huge_ truck is sitting in front of our house with a man in the front seat similar to what Andy described like three hours ago.

"Ma'am, are you okay?" the cop asks again.

"Yes…well…no. I'd like to report something." I say, still staring at the man.

"Okay."

"Today at about 9 a.m. my boyfriend got slammed into by a semi-truck that's been following him for the past couple days, and now it's sitting right outside our house." I explain, keeping careful watch on the driver.

"Do you have a license plate?" he asks.

In response, I start reading the numbers to him. After a second he cleared his throat awkwardly and asks, "Is it possible you have the wrong numbers?"

"What? Why?"

"Because this plate doesn't exist." He tells me.

Doesn't exist? No way that's possible. This is like a horror movie.

"You say the truck is right outside your house. Is it possible for you to read the numbers directly from the plate?" he asks.

I nod though he can't hear me and walk outside timidly. The man ignored me as I circled around the back of his truck and read the numbers. The same numbers.

Andy had been able to remember these numbers even through a highway spin out. What a weirdo. The cop sighed, "Still no. This truck is unregistered in any state."

"Is it foreign?" I ask as I run back inside and resume my post at the window.

"No, it's American patterns." He sighs again.

"So you don't believe me?" I ask frontally.

The man _laughs_ a bit, "well…not exactly. It's a little farfetched that a truck from space would come after your boyfriend, but if it happens again, call us back." He says, then he hangs up for me.

I stare angrily at the phone for a moment and then throw it at the couch, "nice to know the _fucking _law's on our side!" I growl at it.

I fold my arms and glare back at the truck. The man was is still there, just staring down the street like he's dead. Maybe he is. I hope so. Like he's responding to me, he suddenly moves his head around in an unnatural motion that make me think his neck is broken and looks me in the eyes. His eyes are blue and yellow and completely evil. I can't hold his stare even if I wanted to for some reason, because looking at him was like staring into hell.

I break the contact and bolt upstairs to find Andy completely and stupidly asleep on the bed. At least he's not dead. I again lock every door and window in the house and lay down next to him in the most frightened of all manners. I realize I'm still holding the teddy bear, and I throw it as far across the room as I can.

In the morning I turn of Andy's alarm and let him sleep in. If he doesn't wake up, he can't go to the studio. If he can't go to the studio, he won't die. He woke up around noon to the sound of both his and my phone ringing at the same time. Ashly was calling him, Jinxx was calling me.

He picked up and I could hear him through the bedroom door, first tired, then confused, then agitated. "Look Ash, I'm sorry but neither of my alarms went off." He complained.

He was silent for a second and then sighed, "I think Juliet turned them off or something, I'll be right up-,"

Silence.

"Okay, fine. Sorry. See you tomorrow." I pick up my phone and answer Jinxx's third call.

"Hello?" I respond.

The first thing he asks was if Andy was okay. "Yes, he's fine...just slept in, that's all."

He sighed, "Okay, cool. We all left the studio a little bit ago, I was trying to call to tell Andy not to show up."

I nod, "okay, thanks. So why where you worried about him then?" I ask.

"...well he just get hit by a truck."

"Well yeah, but he was fine when you saw him last and-,"

"And I also drove by when that guy was outside your house last night. I tried to call you but the line was busy so I just wanted to make sure no murder had occurred." He butts in before I could continue.

I laugh. It hadn't. "Thanks Jinxx, I'll make sure Andy shows up on time tomorrow, okay." I say.

"Alright." He hangs up.

I walk into the bedroom with my face towards the floor but I know Andy's looking at me with that familiar old curious, slightly skeptical look on his face with his right eyebrow hovering just above the parameter of the left and his lips pursed in a crooked pout. I say familiar because I get this same look day and night. I glance up and he asks after a moment, "Why'd you sabotage my alarms?"

I shrug, than smile and say, "you _need _to just sit tight for a day. You've been almost killed now and I'm not going to be attending your funeral."

He nods but still maintains his face-no actually his eyebrow went up a little bit more, "you seemed worried."

I laughed sarcastically, "_me?_ Worried? No silly! I'm not worried about my boyfriend who now has a really scary stalker out to crush him with a truck, no I'm just being an ass."

He sighs, "I'm fine."

"No you're not. I don't even think this guys is registered in the U.S." I respond.

"What the hell makes you think that?" he asks.

"I just do." I groan.

"You called the cops huh?" he accuses.

I stare at him for a moment. He's not mad. He's not even irritated. How can one person remain so calm when their being hunted by a freak?

"Yes I did." I respond proudly, "and the cop _hung up on me _because the license plate wasn't real. This guy must be smart to make a freaking plate with a fake number on it, and he's now trying to run you off highways."

"I'm fine." He sighs, then stands up. My head has to crane up to look at him with the face I wanted to. He's very tall.

He stands in front of me for a while with his arms crossed and his hips jutted out in a casual "I'm not worried and you shouldn't be either" stance, accompanied by one of his squinty eyed faces that BVB fangirls die over. But it's all wrong. Usually he's casual in a way that makes someone wearing a nice pair of shoes feel over dress, but now he's sweating, his hands are shaking. I can see it now, his skin is too pale, clammy almost, his eyes are much to peeled and shifty, his arms are too…_crossed. He is terrified_. Hell, his knees would probably be knocking together if he wasn't standing with his feet about a yard apart.

And he's lying to me about it. Well of course he was. He doesn't know what's going on, but he's not going to walk around with the same face he had when he came home the first time saw the truck all the time. He's just playing it cool like he does too much.

I cross my arms and mirror his pose. His eyebrow perks up just a little bit and he smiles bigger. I smile a little too, half mocking him, half out of response to his grin.

His lips contort for a second, then this big old grin brightens up his face and he starts chuckling. He's so funny like that sometimes. One minute he's as serious as cancer, then the next he's being a dork. God I love this boy.

He loses the cool guy position and grabs my face to kiss me, then picks up his towel off of the floor where he decided to leave it yesterday morning and starts to walk off to the shower before he turns with his cheesy smile still in place and asks, "Wanna come?"

Hell yeah I do.

**…**

Andy really didn't do much all the rest of the day. He ate a lot, slept a lot, watched a lot of T.V., we cuddled a lot, but nothing really productive came out of it. That was good. At least he didn't leave the house long enough to get squashed by a truck. I didn't do much either. I went shopping and got some groceries. That's it. I didn't even put on makeup. Andy never even put on pants. He just paraded around in his boxers and an old t-shirt the whole time he was home.

I pretended I wasn't nervous but every time I went upstairs for anything I couldn't help but peak in on our bedroom and stare at the creepy ass bear for a little. I don't think he was fooled by my mascaraed, but I sure as hell wasn't fooled by his either. Every time something moved in the house- every single time- he would jump, or stand, or simply stares at the spot with a deer-in-head-lights blank gawk like, "this is it." It never failed. I started counting at about three o'clock and have since gained sixty-seven times that he's done something like this.

He looked out the window about every thirty seconds for a good portion of the day and even asked me to keep the lights on when we watched some movie on Netflix that neither of us paid attention to. He's not scared of the dark. Come to think of it, I don't know if he went into a single room unless I came too. I have no idea how he survived while I was out shopping.

Now it's about eight thirty and neither of us feel like cooking dinner or even heating it up, so we call out for pizza. Andy finally put on some pants, but they're just weird stripped pajama pants and there's a hole on the right butt cheek that you could fit a human head through.

The doorbell rings, the pizza is delivered, and we pay and sit down to feast. I have been texting Ashley and CC all day to ask them to keep an eye out for the truck, to make sure that Andy wasn't alone in a car or even outside for that matter, to ask them if they wanted pizza, and then added that if they _did _want our pizza, they had to bring beer. They show up about ten minutes later with a six pack and the other guys and we sit around doing nothing for another three hours. I send Andy out to get something and while he's gone, I show the guys the bear I've been keeping under close supervision for the past 12 hours.

They don't have anything to say, and CC-the very most superstitious of the group-really doesn't want to touch it, or even see it at all. I can't blame him. Then Andy comes back in and you can hear the momentary panic in his voice when he called for us and then the flurry of footsteps so fast they sounded like a snare drum gave way to him standing in front of us like he thought he'd never see us again.

"Did you think we got kidnapped?" Ashely asks jokingly.

Andy just raised his eyebrows. I know what he's most likely thinking. It's probably something along the lines of, "I was thinking more murder, but kidnapping is good too."

We spend the rest of the night doing nothing and the guys left at about eleven. Now me and Andy are lying on our bed listening to cars pass by the house and each most likely hoping we don't hear a truck. We did a couple times but neither of us got up the balls to check. I wait until Andy is so fast asleep that even the ice cube trick wouldn't stir him and then take the bear out into the back yard. This is really stupid, but I bury it. I got this thought about an hour ago that the only reason the truck wasn't here watching us was because I was stupidly keeping this thing in our room, so I bury it both to keep it out of our sight and to keep us out of its.

Then I go back upstairs, lock all the doors and windows like usual and go to sleep next to my little homicide victim.

Andy's POV.

I was a little irritated when I woke up at noon to a very worried, and angry, phone call from Ashely. I knew Juliet had turned off my fucking alarm, I'm not dumb, but I'm a little relieved that she did. If it had been _me _who just decided to stay home for a day, I would have gotten more shit than I could carry, but since it was my intensely concerned girlfriend that sabotaged me, I could stay home with little to no words said my direction. To be honest, I didn't do anything yesterday, I was useless but it was really nice just to sit around and let myself be paranoid for a day.

I was probably hilarious too, acting like a child and not watching movies with the lights off. I could hardly take a piss without Juliet standing outside the door. I would still do that today as well if I didn't have to go the studio.

You know, Juliet left for one hour to go shopping and the whole time I sat on the couch with the shades drawn, blaring Avenged Sevenfold as loud as the television speakers could manage, my legs curled up to my chest, my hands occupied with a piece of paper that I ripped into tiny little shreds and a sucker in my mouth to keep myself sane. I turned it down and sat as casually as I could in the center couch when I saw her car and put the shredded paper under the cushion. I don't think she was convinced.

That's okay, I wasn't really trying that hard to be convincing, I was more just trying to stay sane. But I don't have any more time to waste trying to stay earthbound, so I'm currently occupying myself while I'm in the shower by taking all the lids off of the many different soap bottles we have and putting them by color in a pyramid shape on the floor of the bathtub.

I guess I've been in here for a long time. All of my digits sort of feel like a cats tongue and the water is making me shiver. Conclusion? I'm late again. I turn off the frigid water and get out as quickly as my joints that had spent a good hour curled up on the shower floor could take me. I dry off and get dressed and nearly forget to brush my damn hair before I fly out the door and get into Juliet's car since mine is getting towed today.

She comes out with an openly concerned expression on her face and I know as well as she does I shouldn't leave, but I can't keep missing the studio. The guys can do plenty without me there, but sooner or later they're going to need me to sing and if I'm not there I just seem like an ass.

I wave to her with a big smile and start the car, pulling out of the driveway and avoiding her stare the best I could manage, which meant completely ignoring her because she was _trying _to catch my eye with hers.

I race down the street and then flip around. I have to take the highway eventually, there's not a chance of avoiding that if I plan on going to the studio, but I can take the windy back streets until the intersection that's literally like two minutes away from the studio.

So I do that. I go back past the house and start winding down the avenues. This way is one I haven't taken since I first moved into our house and the reason for that is it takes another ten minutes to wiggle through them to the highway.

I turn on my tracks and sigh loudly over CC's beat. "_This _is gonna take a while."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three…

The end.

Juliet POV.

I can't shake this feeling that Andy really shouldn't have left today. It so strong that it's sickening, it's similar to drinking too much booze and then doing a hundred jumping jacks; sort of a queasy, spinney feeling.

He ignored me silently begging for him to stay home again though and there's nothing I can do now, so I have to occupy myself somehow. I walk upstairs and start picking up the hallway which looks like a tornado hit it. I love him, but god he can be a slob. I could be at my own recording session right now, but I told my guitarist to hold off so he could rest since he was just really, really sick for like a month, but I really am just scared, I don't want to leave and it's not even me being chased.

I go to put Andy's shit back into the room where it belongs, but I can't. It's locked. Did he lock it from the inside? Probably not, I don't even think he realizes doors lock. Still though, it's definitely locked. I find this very annoying and automatically become agitated with the door. I'm going to ignore it and do something else, so I walk outside and go to the garage.

I feel like I should really fix the hell-clutter of stuff in there to pass the time. I pull it open and walk in looking at my phone which held a text from Andy asking if I wanted him to make dinner tonight. Yes I do. I tell him this exactly and then look up. Then I can't move. It's impossible, but the thin cord that acts as a switch to turn the light on and off hanging from the celling now harbors a particularly unnerving blue children's toy, which hangs by its neck coiled around by a tiny noose.

I feel like I'm living in a horror movie. I grab the animal and run out to the back yard where I had buried the same toy _yesterday _and rip up the ground with my fingertips. It's not there. Of course it's not there, it's in my hands. I am seriously confused and possibly freaked out, but I don't know, I can't really discern whether or not I'm just hungry.

I go back inside still clutching the bear and walk into the attic. If it won't stay buried, it'll just have to live up here. I open up a box and then another, looking for the one Amy, Andy's mom, had given us to keep. It's full of all his baby things, cloths, toys, and the bear would go unnoticed there. I eventually found it after a long time of searching. It was old, dusty, and Amy's handwriting was scrawled on the top, "Andy's Baby things."

To this day I still don't know why she gave this to us, I think it was just because they didn't want it anymore, but it makes a good grave for a teddy bear so I'm currently not complaining. Then as I open it, I grow intrigued. I've never looked in this before and it was funny to take a second and realize Andy used to be a baby. Now he's like six foot four and most of his baby cloths wouldn't even fit his left foot adequately. I sort through the box to pass the time. Mostly old cloths and things. Booties, little socks, footie-pajamas, hats the size of baseballs, all in different shades of blue and occasionally another cheery color like yellow or green.

Then at the very bottom there's an old photo album with lots of tiny Andy Biersack pinned on the pages. It's so adorable. There are even a few ultrasounds of the tiny uterine form of him. I am smiling uncontrollably. Until I see something I don't want to see. Firstly, from Andy's first birthday up until his fifth, he always gripped a certain blue teddy bear by the arm like it was his lifeline. I am now holding this same toy, but now it's burnt and graying and…creepy.

Secondly, I notice a figure always in the background for the entire span of the book with any age surpassing one. A tall, dark figure, one yellow eye, one blue eye and greasy yarn like hair. Just like the trucker.

Andy's POV.

The back streets have never moved so slow around me. I feel like I'm driving though molasses, but instead I am just weaving though a plethora of kids entering the junior high school. And the limits only twenty five. Can I describe this with my vocabulary? Probably, let's see... Irritating. Frustrating. _Grueling._ Ridiculous. Infuriating. Annoying. Agitating. Terrible. Stupid. Lame. Awful. These kids are just strolling along next to traffic like a herd of fucking cows. I honk and four of five of them flip me off automatically. Dammit. MOVE MOTHER FUCKERS.

This generation has made me forget the reason I took back roads all together and only hate myself for trying. I slide along at a speed of .3 miles per hour for another ten minutes while a group of retards that are too old to attend the school anyway amble across the street and into the parking lot, then I rev my engine, release the clutch and fly forward, avoiding any child on my hell sprint out of the suburbs.

Now I'm back to the lonely, and the tape I have stopped mid track and refuses to play. So after a minute of driving over an empty street, just as the interstate came in to view, the fear settled in again and gripped tight on my stomach.

I think I might be developing some sort of PTSD from all of this because driving is seriously starting to trip me out. It's like around every turn, behind every house, sitting just out of my sight is the trucker and all his fury, waiting to smash me like a bug. But I haven't seen him yet. This eases my panic for a moment, only to resurrect it tenfold when I realized the longer he waits, the more violent his attacks come. Now I'm literally looking for him, glaring up streets and into driveways. I figure I'd much rather have to drive as fast as the car's engine could handle while being tailed by a killer truck driver than be actually killed by said truck driver.

I don't see him. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he got bored. Either way, I'm glad he's a no show. I pull out onto the interstate and start to feel very queasy. I hadn't seen him, but I'd also only seen him on the highway and on my street. I don't want to have a run in with him like I did last time, that's what I was trying to avoid by seeking the asshole out. Aside from the PTSD, I must have also some sort of delusional bi-polar disorder due to this experience, because one moment I feel pissed, the next I feel fine, then scared, and now I'm going to shit myself if anything moves.

I'm now cruising down the highway at 95 mph, blasting the tape that randomly decided to work. As usual, the highway is empty. Not a car, nor pedestrian in sight. I would really much rather be stuck in some crazy traffic right now than alone on the world's most dangerous street, but I guess we don't get to choose our situations.

So I have to keep calming myself with a constant reminder that I am literally three minutes away from the studio. All I have to do is turn right on the intersection and by then the parking lot is in sight. I pull up to the intersection and sit back while I wait for the light to turn green. I know I can go, but maybe if I obey the fucking traffic laws, so will the trucker.

This light is eternal and all I can do is stare at the studio. So close, yet so far away. I consider for one moment just turning really quickly and firing into the lot, then consider getting out and _running _there, then I look up and realize the light is now green and staring at me.

I sigh the heftiest breath of air I can manage (which is pretty impressive being that I'm a singer) and lumber forward, my toe barely on the gas. I look both ways, then behind me, stare in front of me for a moment, left and right again, then slowly, ever so slowly, and reach the turn lane. And the light turns red. Shit. I literally just sat here for like five minutes looking up and down the streets when I could have easily made the turn. I sigh once more and pull out a cigarette. I don't like it, but I do it. Especially when I'm nervous. I roll down the window, light it up, put on some sunglasses and take a breath do deep my lungs ach with the strain and then blow it out in a compact little stream of grey smoke.

I sit there forever again, then the light turns green. I turn on my signal and start to turn the wheel just as I hear this distant roar of an engine. And then a honk. I turn my face and see the truck I've been so diligently avoiding galloping at me from about one hundred yards away.

For what seems and feels like a long time, I freeze. I stare as the truck nears my nostalgic position, and can only wonder how I'm going to get out of this one. The cigarette tumbled out of my gapping mouth and then awakens me by scalding my hand (which was thankfully on my lap) with the red hot tip.

I jump and for the second time feel the swirl of real adrenaline as my body tries to react as fast as my mind was. As I try my very best to speed out of the way of an obvious collision, it becomes all too clear that any move I make at this point, so far into the truck's attack, would only make it worse. I come to terms with the fact that I'm completely out of options, I watch as the world slows down around me. I can see the truck looming feet away from me, the driver's sick thrill plastered on his putrid face. He's laughing, I can see that, and I'm crying. I can see that too. I can see my life, like a string between the blades of a pair of scissors; so fragile, and about to break.

As time begins to turn back to its lighting pace, my arms instinctively fly up to protect my head, and my eyes squeeze shut, pushing more tears down my face as I hold my breath, and beg poignantly for my life to be spared. And I wait. And wait.

Nothing's happening. Surely I've been here, waiting for a collision for minutes, but not even a shutter rocked my car. Besides myself, I still hold my arms over my head with my eyes shut and my breath still. Finally I let air out of my mouth in a thin stream, though I wasn't really feeling constricted and begin to believe the truck missed me by some strange way in hell. Only after another few minutes of waiting in some deluded terror do I realize that I'm standing, my feet are planted firmly on the ground, and I'm completely unharmed.


	4. Chapter 4

I'm not entirely sure what just happened. I don't feel confused though. There is the slight wonder if I'd sleep-walked into the middle of a highway, but that goes away when I hear the blare of sirens in the distance. I look the way the sound travels to me, and can see the American colors hurtling towards me. Had something happened? I take a step, and glass crunches under me. I look at my toes, and then bend down. I grab one of the shards and check it out. It looks like windshield fragment. I breath in, the smell of smoke. I stand up, still looking at the piece of glass in my hands, and then see a swirl of cars zoom past me. One almost runs me the fuck over as I'm standing there, innocently looking at my glass.

Maniac. I realize it's a police car, and yell after him with all of my colorful vocabulary in full practice.

Then I stop swearing, and virtually loose all of my ability to speak at all. I watch as ambulances, fire trucks, cop cars all congregate around a car that had been hit from the side, smashed. It used to be red, once upon a time but now it was a mix of red, silver where the paint had been scrapped off, and black. Charred black. The engines belching black smoke as I speak, and the windows and then windshield have been shattered. I recognize this car, and the potential situation, and I should be terrified. The glass I'm standing on had been projected out by the crumpled body and battered head that now was hanging halfway out of the shield. It had a mass off black hair on it, and the skin, though covered in blood and burns, punctured with glass and bruised, was notably pale, and tattooed.

Police make a line, close off streets. Cars start filling up the streets again as the cops push them back, and EMT's run to the car carrying all of their tools, followed by fire fighters who had their own set of things.

I can see four men running up to the line the police made, through the cars. Its my band. They're all shouting, demanding the police tell them who is in that car, and if they'll be okay. The cop won't answer. That's not a good sign

I fee numb, distant. Emotionless, if you will, as the firemen put out a blooming fire that threatens the hair on the bodies head. They take crowbars, and force the doors of the car open. Glass, covered in blood, tinkles by their feet, and the EMT's pull the body out. I begin to walk towards the wreckage, one foot after another, class crunching, smoke filling my lungs that didn't feel the need to breath. I'm standing, practically breathing down the EMT's backs now, as they finally dislodge the victim from his perch in the sharded windshield. Immediately, before they even get the body out, tissue, blood, and teeth feel to their shadows. Then, an arm, ripped out by force, held on too the cadaver only by shredded skin, and muscle, slid out. It was blue, pale, but it was marked with the definite and unmistakable mess of black and red ink on it's skin, that strikes me as my own even through it's cut and battered appearance.

This is unbelievable, insane, and I don't feel surprised at all. I'm staring at my own hollow body as it gets put on a stretcher, and the EMT speaks into a recorder. Time of death, nine a.m. Cause of death, presumably, impact. Await further conformation from the Coroner.

Dead. I'm dead. Well, obviously. My head, now that I can see it, has been slit nearly in half, my brain is visible, the skin on my face looks to me to have been ripped off. My eyes are open, and staring. But they're empty.

Okay, I'm done with myself, I walk away. It's over, done with. I really don't have any emotion about my own body, so I walk over to the guys as they're frantically asking if I'll be alright, since they've now seen me, and can tell it's me. I can't see why they'd still be asking if I was alright. I didn't have an arm. But I guess, maybe, they were a little more torn up about it then I was.

Then I remember Juliet. There must be news reports. I look around, yes there are vans, and cameras and reporters standing outside of the police line. If she was watching T.V, listening to the radio, or even had her phone she'd be seeing the wreckage of her own car, and my body being put into the ambulance. I try to imagine what she'd be feeling at this moment. She's probably calling for a ride, or running, or something, trying to meet the ambulance. Or, perhaps, she's sitting, disbelieving, blank. I hope she can cope. I want to be there to help her. I turn, and begin walking back towards my house.

But the ambulance pulled away, and I feel this tug. Suddenly, I'm in the vehicle with my dead body. Dammit. We arrive at the hospital, I guess I have to follow as the EMT's get out and bring my body straight to the morgue. No questioning this death, I guess. They bumped my stretcher into the doors with some rude force.

"hey!" I complain. They didn't notice. Well fuck you two. They put me on this stretcher with my arm across my chest, my head still oozing blood, and I frankly am offended by the way they're treating me. The coroner looked like a nice old man, though, and when they EMT's left, leaving me, my body, and this guy alone, he pulled on some gloves, gingerly placed my arm where it should be, by my shoulder, and he says, looking at my destroyed face, "poor kid."

This could sound snide, but he says it in a way, that I feel he's not speaking about me specifically, but maybe someone else he was remembering. He took the stretcher back, and struggled lifting me onto the table to examine. I'm not heavy, but I am dead, and floppy, and maybe a foot taller then this man.

He succeeds in getting me in place, and then strips me down to nothing. I feel a little uncomfortable, like I should be self-conscious while he's looking at me, but I'm not, really. He rinses all of the blood and stuff off of me with a stream of water, then struggles yet again to get me onto another table. He really needs an assistant.

Poor dude.

He pulls on new gloves, turns on some old radio station, and pulls out his set of tools. So many tools. I've seen them all today. EMT's, firemen, corners. What next?

He pulls out a scalpel. I'm not sure why, you can pretty much see everything you need to determine I was crushed to death. Still, he puts on some glasses, stands over me, and puts it to my chest, just under my collarbone.

Then, he shoves it in, but I don't bleed, and I can't watch. I cover my eyes for the second time today. Then when I look again, expecting a little man dissecting me, I'm in a new place. Again.

This situation is different from the ones before, though. I'm not in, or around, or near or even in a relatively comparable place to where I was last. I mean, this is a bright, white, neat looking room with comfy looking chairs all around, and from about mid-thigh up, it's made of mirrors that are reflecting me back at myself on a massive scale. Even the tile is strange. Its white, and gold, but the cold veins are moving and are never in the same place twice. Some times they swirl, some times they amble straight away. SOMETIMES THEY ARENT THERE!

That's not even weirdest. What's weirdest, is the guy staring back at me. I mean, It's me, it's my face and my body and shit, but…well nothing else is really mine. For example, my skin is flawless, and I have no scars, nor a crooked nose, nor piercing marks. My hair is blonde now, too. Like, luscious golden blond. I look like a kid.

My face is no longer a mans! Its smooth and innocent looking, I don't think I've ever felt stranger. I FREAK SHIMMER. that's right. As I'm moving my arms ups and down, partially making sure my right one is still attached, and partly trying to find all of my tattoos and scars and things, that aren't there, by the way, I find there is this slight, gold glimmer. Not like Edward Cullen or something, but like I put body glitter on. All over.

I do have to say, I look pretty. But I don't like it. At least I didn't revert to being prepubescent or some. My cheeks are still hollow, still have a scratchy neck and chin, I still can see the line of my jaw. I'm still pretty sure I'm twenty-four, is the point.

I suddenly feel like I'm being watched. I look behind me, using the mirror, and see a guy behind me. I flip around to face him defensively, "who are you?" I ask.

He smiles. He looks like Thor. Long, light, clear skin. He's not tall, but he's buff as fuck, and wearing hardly any cloths. He's not naked, it's just this weird toga thing that is draped over him. What? His eyes are hazel. I'm not looking at his eyes, I'm not creepy. But…he is. He's keeping my stare, and I feel uncomfortable. On his head, there is this crown think that looks like silver leaves and other things like that. The most confusing thing is his wings. Maybe eight or nine feet each, pearly white. They where perched nicely behind him.

He smiles at my awkwardness towards him. In my defense, I had no idea he was there, and I was just checking myself out in the mirror in front of an angel. Has he been her the whole time.

"Hello Andrew." he greets me.

"Andy," I tell him, "now you tell me who you are?" I instruct him. I feel obnoxious doing this, but he doesn't seem to grasp the normal things I would grasp.

"I'm Gabriel. Archangel of the Heavenly kingdom of Paradise." he says.

"uh…" I return, "hi. I'm a…a singer."

He smiles, "I'm aware of you profession."

He's weird.

"follow me." he says. He turns, but there's no doors in this room- oh wait. Now there is. Has it been here? Or what?

I follow him into a long hallway with nice furniture and stuff. He takes me into a room with a massive, rounded celling, and lots of feathers on the ground. He walks by an automated rack like drycleaners have, but instead of cloths, there are big old upside-down-tear shaped, opaque bags with a lot in them.

He continues by this to a podium holding a book.

"Biersack, correct?" he asked me.

I nod.

"okay."

He found something in the book, then carried that knowledge over to buttons that controlled the rack. He waits as they swoop by, and asks, "You enjoy being a musician, right?"

I nod.

He smiles. "Musicians, the eternal clocks of the universe." he notes.

I cock my head to one side, "what?"

"you didn't hear me?" he wonders.

"no, I heard." weirdo. "I was just asking what you meant."

He sighs a content sigh as he finally stops the machine and grabs out a very tall bag and hustles it to a table.

"You sort always counting. Steady, forever going. You think clocks came before music?" he laughs like he just told the most hilarious joke. I don't get it.

"No, the musician came first, and fathered the clocks you see today. That's why I say, you're always keeping time, I think. It takes a lot to understand the breakdown of only a second. Then you go, and put something beautiful to that time you're always keeping. It's the closest you humans get to angels, in my opinion." he says fondly, smiling innocently at me.

I'm blushing. Should I be blushing? Probably not, but at the same time, he just told me that my kind of human is more angelic than other kinds of human. I think that's worth blushing over.

I smile back at him, and begin to tap my foot subconsciously as he takes out a little pair of scissors and begins to gingerly cut away the bag.

He stops and turns to me with a happy face, "see!" he says, pointing to my foot, which is bare, I just realized I'm not wearing shoes.

But I am tapping it, in a beat that I guess is steady. Cool.

He keeps cutting the bag away, until a feather falls out. I wonder what's going on, and my foot stops. He doesn't notice, just keeps cutting up the bag until the bone structure of an obvious wing is visible. Finally the bag is gone, and there is two big, tall, muscular looking wings that are perfectly white, excepting brown dots speckled over the back.

They're folded, and maybe fifteen or sixteen feet long each. All together, a giant wingspan. "What the hell?" I wonder aloud.

Gabriel seems slightly taken aback by the word choice I have, but ignores it, and says, "yours."

What?

I take a step closer, and they come alive. They wiggle, and move, flutter. They're feathers are mostly downy, the really fuzzy stuff. I examine this as they move.

"that's common. It's like the baby fat of angel wings. You'll shed it and then they'll look more like mine." Gabriel says.

WHAT? "I don't need wings." I tell him.

He shrugs, "well you have them."

I shake my head and turn to walk away. No wings. But then, I hear this swoosh, followed by a tremendous pain in my spine, and all of the sudden I have wings. Great.

He then walks me down another hall, and takes me into a mostly empty room, with nothing but a table with a ton of buttons on it, a cozy looking chair, and a big door that towered over us.

"Wait here. Press whatever buttons you want, but don't open the door. It won't work." he tell me.

With that, he leaves.

At first I'm standing, staring at this door, but then I sit, and press a button randomly. There must be thousands of buttons on this panel. Each maybe only the size of a skittle and blinking. The one I press doesn't do anything, so I press another, and then another. I press maybe five buttons before vaguely look up to find that the door was still there, but the wall seemed to turn to glass, and conveyed the recess of space. I stand in awe, and walk closer. I've seen pictures, I remember astronomy from high school, but I've never seen a thing like this. Its massive, for one, pitch black, with stars and rocks, and colorful gas everywhere. I'm looking at the universe. No picture, no matter high resolution it is, can compare to standing a glass pane's worth of space away fro the real thing.

I stand there, staring for maybe five minutes. Then I walk back to the chair and sit. I press button after button, and see place after place. Heaven, heart, the universe from like, fifty different stand points. Then, I can't believe what I see. I wish I could unsee it. It was hell. Burning flesh, screams of agony, monsters and fire everywhere. The whole nine yards. In front of me, there is a demon. It's a woman, with untamed, dark hair and wild, fire colored eyes. She had horns and gills, and claws like a cat.

She stares at me. She can't see me, right? She waves. Fuck.

I press buttons frantically, but it seems years before it changes to a street view of earth. I leave it there. No more buttons for me. I stare as the foreign people march back and forth on their street, and then finally, the big door opens. The backdrop changes on it's own, and this time, I'm looking at a snowy town caught in a bad eighties movie version of time where it's new, and old at the same time. People are walking, riding horses, they live in homes that seem half of them are heated by flame the other half heater. Some had phones, and graphic tee's, the others had working attire, and no electronics. All together, I'm not sure I understand.

It's a pretty big town, with a big lake and a waterfall by it. The lake is frozen, but the water still is falling from the cliff. Strange. I walk up to the door, and peek through. There's a Lady waiting there with little wings, maybe three feet each. She escorts me through the town. I still feel an inescapable lack of emotion that makes me think of the straight-lined-mouth emoji. That's me. Its also cold here, frozen over and icy, but I don't really feel that way. I'm wearing a thin tee, and some baggy pants, which is what I arrived in the mirrored room with. No shoes or socks, and I feel fine walking around in this weather.

Huh.

She looks at a paper. Then stops. I almost ran into her.

"Well this can't be right." she laughs.

"what?" I ask.

"they're saying you got assigned 2309 River Drive, but that house isn't suitable for anyone to live in…" she muses.

"where is it?" I ask.

She points up a mountain side, way, way, way up there. It was kind of by the water fall buried in tree's where I saw the small outline of a building.

"Why isn't it suitable?" I wonder as she starts walking again in confusion.

"it's just not. We've always been told that house will never be assigned. I think there's something wrong with it…" she sighs.

Am I alarmed? I should be alarmed, "like what?"

"There are just speculations about the house having some sort of power to it, like a magic of sorts. It has charms on it from the last creep that lived there that wont let anyone in after someone claims it as their home, it has mirrors all over and its painted gray of all things. Its supposed to have things hidden in the walls and there's supposed to be something horribly wrong with that whole area." she sighed.

Mirrors? The color gray? Things in the walls? It actually doesn't sound that foreboding, so I say, "Well, it must be correct. Can you take me up there?"

She looks at me like I just dug my own grave, but nods, and I follow her up a trail that lasts forever, then finally lets out to a flight of stone stairs embedded in the ground that leads up and out of sight in the snow covered trees.

I walk up these behind the woman, and she takes me into what looks like a drive way. There are stables, empty, snow that has no footprints, and a house.

She shook her head.

I look at her.

"I…this house has been freshly painted." she tells me.

"strange?" I ask.

She shakes her head, "The houses we assign to new comers get painted and refurnished so it's somewhat comfortable. This just means it wasn't a mistake." she sighs.

I shrug, and she hands me a key.

"good luck."

She leaves. What a weird place, full of weird people. This house must be five miles away from the rest of the town. So at least the weirdo's are at bay.

I walk up to the door, and unlock it with the key. When I enter, the lights are off. I turn them on, and see soft carpet, nice curtains, every thing within is a shade of white or tan, and there are big windows facing the waterfall that isn't half a mile away.

It nice. Looks like it just came out of a Barbie house, but it's nice. And from where I am, I'm at the top of this particular piece of the cliff, and I'm above the trees, so I can see the lake, and the town, and even some more after that.

Awesome.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note! : Hey guys, i'm sorry it's been sooooo long. My dumb new computer decided it didnt want to copy and paste anything for a month so... Any way i know it's still kinda slow, and i'm sorry, but every great story must have a brilliant stage to be performed on. Plus, c'mon. *wink wink* we all know a Gwenivin. If you don't know one, it's probably you. :) She's good fun.**

**Chapter Five…**

Gwenivin…

I've spent a good twenty four hours in my new house. It appeared, at first glance, to be in good shape, and it is, but in it's own way. See, the back yard is very untamed, tall grass, overgrown trees and bushes, it looks like there used to be flowers and shit out here, but now there's only a bunch of sad looking patches of near black dirt are filled with the dead bodies of plants long abandoned.

In the house, there is plain walls, and furniture that is as 'Better Homes and Gardens' as it gets, but it's all bland, and not my taste, really. There's no fence around the property, there's no curtains on the windows, no food in the cupboards, no toilet paper in either of the bathrooms, no blankets on the bed. I'm gonna have to get a job.

Then there's weird part. For one, in every room there are four mirrors, on mounted on every wall, facing each other. If that wasn't creepy enough, they're all facing backwards, and they're nailed that way so I can't pull them off, or even flip them without ripping open my walls. Even the mirrors in the bathroom are gone; they look like they've been shattered, pulled out piece by piece.

Then, the next thing that's weird, is there are ten rooms in this house in total. I counted. One master bedroom (mine), one guest room, my room has a bathroom in it, then there's another bathroom down the hall. Then, there's a kitchen, a living room, a laundry room, and a study or office. Whatever. But, that's only eight, even though there are ten rooms. Only thing is, there are two rooms I cannot open for the life of me (or death of me, I suppose…).

One is down the hall from the kitchen, between the guest room and the laundry room. It has a lock on it that doesn't fit the skeleton key I've found that opens every other lock in the house. I think it might be a basement down there, because when you walk around, there is obviously another floor under you, but I can't get down there. I even body slammed the door and it didn't work!

Then there's another one. Same story, it's a door in my house that leads somewhere and won't open. But it's just a little ball for the knob, there isn't a place for a key to fit, and again, body slamming it doesn't work. I couldn't imagine what other kind of room it would be besides a closet, and that's fine. I don't need anymore storage, since every room has a closet, or shelves, or a pantry or something in it, and the door with no lock on it makes me feel... icky when I'm trying to open it, so i'll just leave it alone. For now. As for the basement, I want down there, just so I can see why it's locked.

If you walk around outside, there are no windows were the room should be, so i really do think it's just a closet. But on the far end of the yard, hidden by weeds and such fuckery, there is a little window about level with the bottom of my knees.

This is obviously the basement window, but go figure, it's the only window in the damn house with a curtain on it. I'd break it, but I have no means of repairing it, seeing how I don't even have food, which brings me back to the beginning- I NEED A JOB.

This is tricky; I've never had a real job, I've only ever been a rockstar, so I don't feel confident in my skill set enough to help me find a job, but I'll give it a try.

I walk down the everlasting path to the little city, and start wandering the streets. I get the feeling I'm not really liked here. For some reason, people wearing glasses, or behind windows look at me in utter surprise, then _glare _at me for no reason.

The first place I walked up to had a help wanted sign in it. Strange, I didn't think you'd need a job in heaven, but it is what it is. I should have known that I was in trouble when I saw they had a window in there. Maybe I look green through windows or something, because people outside, with no glasses on, smile and wave at me like I'm human too. Or I guess, celestial.

Anyways, I walk in, and the woman running the place had some things in her hands, and a donut in her mouth that was _falling out _while she stood there, drooling frosting on her stuff and half glaring, half staring at me with a confused, possibly freaked out look on her face.

"hi." I say after a moment.

she regains, throws her donut out, sets what she was holding on a near by table and turns to me, "what do you need?" she asked quickly.

Is she scared of me?

"I'm interested in a position here." I say.

She responds by looking at her help wanted sign outside, and shook her head.

"no, no, that's old. We just hired, sorry." she shrugged, and opened the door for me.

How rude, "okay, wait. What's the problem here, I'm feeling a little confused, because people keep staring at me. Do I look weird or something?" I ask.

She took a deep breath and laughed, "what? You haven't seen yourself."

"I have seen myself." I say, still pretty calm, strangely. I'm still working on emotions, "i'm blonde now, blue eyes, tall and a dude."

She looks me over, "now."

"what about not now?" I ask.

"Have you not looked in a mirror since you got here?" she wondered.

I think back to all of the backwards mirrors in my home, and shake my head, "I don't...I don't have any."

She frowns, and walks over to her desk, where she pulls out a little hand held mirror and hands it to me. I look at her, then to it, and am surprised. I know I'm all blonde and pretty now, I've seen it before, but not in this mirror, I'm not.

At first glance, I actually look something like I did on earth, as a living being. black hair, dark eyebrows, scars and tattoos, a little black around my eyes. But then I look again, and I see that the black is not makeup, it' like bags around my eyes, and little veins are visible at the edges of the dark color, like I'd been punched in both eyes, broke some blood vessels, and somehow bruised the color black. My skin is more pale than it was on earth, more pale then now, like all the blood had been taken out of me, and instead, I'm white, with a light, silvery tint to my skin. There is something off about my eyes, like they're dead, or just fuckin creepy. All together, I can see how this woman would be afraid of me if all she'd seen was Satan incarnated.

I handed her back the mirror and sigh, "so no job."

She frowned, and shook her head, "it would be a bad choice for the business."

Great. I had similar luck day out, people didn't like the walking-evil look much, and I could understand. I was ready to go home, when heard this little voice, followed by this flash of orange coming right at me.

I wanted to run, but the orange stopped right in front of me and turned out to be a girl with florescent orange hair, and brown eyes, stick thin and built a little like a school boy. She smiles, then tells I'm pretty, then laughs, and playfully punches my arm. She seems to like me. That's a first. The strangest thing? Glasses.

She tells me that she's seen me walking around, looking for a job, and adds that she might have the perfect place for me. Then she asked what I could do, while grabbing my hand, and pulling me down the street. She's taking three of her little steps to my one, and she's waiting.

I tell her i'm a musician, and she waits, so i further my knowledge. Singing, bass, and a little piano. Just a little.

At this, her little body perks up, and she says I'm perfect, even if i'm not great at piano, and I'm automatically nervous. Sort of. I'm really just curious. What's happening? Where are we going?

This girl is _short _and really very loud, but not American, which is funny because those two things usually go hand in hand. Instead, I believe she is Irish or Scotish. You would think i'd be able to differentiate the two accents, since I've been there, but no, she's talking way too fast. As she's pulling me, I feel like if our hands were reversed, and I was pulling her, my hand would completely engulf hers until it was nonexistent, and I'm walking, she's jogging, and it's working the same.

I wonder how old this girl is.

"how old are you?" I ask.

She stops suddenly, and looks up at me in irritation, "i'm Twenty One, okay, i'm just short. How old are you?" she countered.

"I'm Twenty Five." I tell her.

She seemed pleased until I ask, "so how tall _are _you?"

She sighs, "I'm 4'10." she tells me .

I almost laugh, and she counters the same question to me.

I feel a little rude saying, "around 6'4." standing next to someone who's as tall as some eight year olds, but I do, and she looks somewhere between impressed and sad.

She re-grabs my hand and runs again, faster this time so i actually have to jog behind her, and she leads me to a building somewhere in the depths of the city where the lake is no longer visible, and pulls me in. On the windows there a flyers like, "planning a birthday party?" or "Need a hook? with pictures of pianos and guitars on them, or things like, "cheap catering, priceless service."

This is less scary than I originally believed. On the top, it says "Georgie's Catering and Live Entertainment."

I walk behind this ginger kid-lady, and follow her into the building. She disappears into the back room and comes out with this with a short, brown man that smiles at me.

"Hi." he greets.

"Hi?" I respond.

"You play piano, right?" he asks.

I shrug, "I know the basics."

He puts his thumb on his lip, "can you learn more?"

I nod, "of course."

he grins, "great, if you're interested, you're hired."

Ginger looks at me with an "i told you so" face, and i nod, "Yeah, i'm interested."

He smiles in return. If I really had the ability to be confused right now, I would be. This person has seen me for a total of a minute, and he hired me. Weird. He asks me if i have a piano, and I say no, but he doesn't seem concerned. He just says he'll get me one, hands me a book of music to look over, and tells me to come in early to figure some things out tomorrow.

After Georgie walks back into his back room, happily, I ask Ginger what her name is. She replies with Gwenivin. Bu i can call her Gwen.

She offers to walk with me home, and I tell her where I live. She seems disgruntled and comments that _I _should walk _her _home. Sure, why not.

We begin to walk, and she jogs along besides me with her head frequently alternating between facing forwards, and looking at me. After a while, I clear my throat and ask, "So. What made Georgie want to hire me?"

She smiled, "We've been looking for a musician that kinda fit the _eccentric _look, you know? Good for business. We've been looking around, and we put out want ads, but our catering company doesn't like to make friends. So then some weirdo with a really crazy reflection is walking around looking for a job and can play music. What can I say? You fit the bill." she explained to me.

I nodded, "so you're not freaked out by my crazy reflection?" i ask.

She turns and takes a good long look at me, and then shakes her head. She continues on, pulling off her glasses and looking at me with her uncovered brown eyes looking fairly wide and excited for a reason I couldn't tell you, and she smiles, "i like your reflection. It's cool." she tells me.

I'm cool?

Anyway I walk her up to her house which is in the city like a normal person's, and she asks me what my name is. "I'm Andy." i tell her with a smile.

She seems taken aback by my smile. Oh god, do I have dinosaur teen or something? But then I notice her heavily freckled skin turning a shade of pink, and she breathed deeply, "nice to meet you Andy, see you tomorrow at work, get home safe." she said this all in a rush, and then hurried inside her house. I'm going to pretend like I didn't notice or something. But i'm not stupid. I'm twenty five, i've been around long enough to be able to figure out when someone has a crush on me.

**Gwenivin's POV…**

Have you ever been walking down the street and seen something you just cannot believe? Well I live in heaven, so there are very few things or people who would even come close to surprising me, but sure enough, one of those surprises just lumbered its tall self down the street while I was walking to the grocer.

Tall, black hair, silvery pale skin, skinny. What is this? _Who _is this? You think I would have noticed before if the god of Male beauty walked down the street looking for a job in my town.

Hmm. ANYWAYS, I go about my business, and get myself some food. I like this place. It always smells like fresh baked bread, and my father, in fact, was a baker, back in my time. Maybe that's why my last name is Baker? Or maybe our last name is _why _he wanted to be a baker in the first place! Regardless, I'm Gwenivin Baker. Gwen for short. My super smart and not at all indecisive parents couldn't decide between the name Gweneth, which was my grandmother on my dad's side name, or Vivian, which is my grandmother on my moms side. So they stuck them together like a peanut butter and jelly sammich, and I popped out of the womb as Gwenivin, pronounced Gwen-ih-ven. Nice to meet you.

I'm actually at the bakery, looking at bread, when the same sexy beast from the street walked in. I slowly stalk up to him and stand in the isle by him to spy on what he was saying to the clerk. I might be creepy. Am I creepy? Wait, don't tell me I'm creepy cuz then I won't know _what _to do.

Anyways, he needs a job. No one will hire him because of his reflection. What reflection? Oh yeah, I'm wearing glasses. I pull them off to see the same picture of beauty, only the color yellow for hair, and more normal colored skin than before.

He's pretty.

He leaves in disgruntled disappointment when he is told he's not right for the position, and I finish up my shopping trip. Then, I walk to my house, and put my groceries away. I'm about to head back out to get myself lunch, I'm in the street, when I see him ONE. MORE. TIME. It's like fate. He's walking towards that old trail that leads way up high in the mountain to an abandoned house that some buddies of mine broke into once or twice.

Then I remember what me and my boss, Georgie had talked about. I work for a catering company as a waitress thingy, and we've been needing a musician, but we want someone different, someone...cool. Well he looks cool. I feel a pang of excitement, and I have to stop him, I just have to. So I run up, and intercept him. He seems scared. Am I scary? Can't be. I'm only four foot ten inches. Maybe he's scared he might step on me.

I want to be smooth, and as cool as he apparently is, but I seriously lost control of my stupid mouth for a few seconds and the first thing I say is, "You're pretty, you know that?"

Now, people, normally are afraid of such things being said to them by strangers, but he doesn't seem to phased; he must be used to really short people running up to him and calling him pretty.

I laugh at myself to make up for the stupid, and punch him softly in the arm. I'm reaching. I'm reaching up to hit an arm. I'm pathetic.

I explain that I might know a job for him, and I grab his hand. It's literally as big as my head, I'm serious when I say I'm afraid that I might accidentally lose an arm if he grabs me to hard…

I realise I haven't even asked him what his skill set is, I just assumed his face would be enough, but I think I should figure that one out, so i ask him what he does.

He responds musician. That makes me excited, I wait for him elaborate. He says he can sing, play bass, and a little piano, but emphasizes the limitations of the piano skills. He's perfect. Just right. And I think he'll go good for the job too.

I take him to Georgie, who apparently agrees with my business smarts, because soon I'm watching my new coworker received his first set of music. Awesome. I must be the coolest cat around.

I offer to walk with him to his house. He ruins this idea with his awesome, deep voice by explaining he lives a good three miles up the mountainside in the before mentioned house my friends broke into.

I'm not walking three miles both ways to get to his house. "you can walk me…" I try again.

He agrees with a small smile. Can I just say his eyes seriously make a night sky full of stars look like a pile of horse poop? Can I say that? Cuz I am.

He starts walking with me, and I kinda have to take three steps in between every one he takes, but its good. It's fine. I need to get in shape anyway. I lead him around and he asks me why Georgie liked him so much. I explain the "rebel" thing that we wanted and he seems satisfyed. He then continues on and asks why _I'm _not off put by his reflection. I explain that too.

A lot of hot guys are kinda rude, but this is really not the case. He seems really nice. A _little _monotoned, but nice.

We get back to my house, and I ask him what his name is before opening my door. I'm sure he's said it. I just haven't been paying much attention. Whoops. But he says his name is Andy, and then smiles. and I swear my face caught on fire.

At first he seems confused by me, then he gets this face or recognition, like he just heard a joke he'd been told many times before. Oh god, I want to die. Can I die?

Wait, i'm already dead.

Can I just leave then? I remember my house, and tell him a million things i swear, before I run into my house and close my door. It's dark as I'm walking and I trip over my stupid dog, then just kinda go to bed. I don't really know what to do.

I just really want to be around him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six.**

De Maximo Caeleste Prandium…

**Andy's POV.**

Time passes pretty quickly here; I didn't even realize it but I've been here nearly six months. Gwenivin is my best friend, and is almost always over at my house. I'm not even sure why she still has her own house. She doesn't even go there now excepting the time she takes to feed her dog.

I've become a pretty good pianist; the music Georgie gives me is level five, and it's pretty easy. I've generally never worked _with_ Gwenivin, I've been playing dumb things like teenager's birthday parties or office retirement ceremonies.

But lately I've been moving up the scale, you could say. I've been playing things like city council meetings, or weddings.

Gwenivin says her schedule is changed too. There is the common feeling at Georgie's the something big is happening.

Anyway, I've basically rebuilt my entire house from the ground up and tried to make it less awkward to be in or around. I repainted the walls, and got new doors. The carpet is brown now, and the walls are a deep blue. I think it looks better than bran-flakes colors. Anyway, seven cans of paint, a little over three thousand square feet of new flooring and a bunch of new furniture later, I think my house is actually...nice.

I haven't really gotten anything to put up on the walls yet, but everything is all homey and I actually have food and toilet paper now.

I still can't get into my basement, or the random closet. All of the mirrors are still either flipped or broken, and Gwenivin had helped me try and take the door off it's hinges, break it, all the nine yards and still, it's intact.

Whatever, I have enough rooms.

I think the next thing i want to do is work on my yard, but before i do that, I have to fence it in. Since kids have found out that someone lives here, it's become a common hangout for assholes, and i've tried once or twice to plant flowers, but only find them picked or crushed or burnt or something the next day. So fence. Then flowers.

I think I work so much on my house and yard now because I'm frequently alone. I can only practice piano so many times a day before i want to tear the keys off with my bare hands and throw them at stupid kids that burn my lawn.

So I paint things, or something. See, Gwenivin is here a lot _at night _and this is mainly were she sleeps, but she works a lot more than me since hostesses are more needed than pianists, and somehow I still make more than her, but she's also a part time college student and full time ice-skater. She wants me to do both of these things to "get out a little more than once a month," but I just...don't want to. You know? I guess I'm still adjusting or whatever, but I don't _like _the city, or the people, or my _job _for that matter. In all honestly, I've never regained my full emotions from where they were lost somewhere on the big blue planet earth, I never regained my love for people. I seclude myself, admittedly on purpose, because nothing is interesting to me anymore. Every time I think about being an angel, I feel about ready to cry. Time is the best medicine, I think. Time, and house remodeling.

So I'm measuring my yard right now. It's pretty big; good think i make a lot of money. After i find out how big my yard is, I write that down and take myself down the staircase to the city, and I go into the store to get my fence. I'm leaving as I see a ginger mess running up to me from down where the oxygen is very thick. Gwenivin runs up and crashes into me, puts her hands on my shoulders which requires her to reach literally _up_ and she nearly yells, "WE'VE GOT A JOB TOGETHER!"

What?

"a job?"

"Yes! Georgie wants you _right. Now._" she informed me.

I look at the cart I have full of fencing supplied and turn back to her, and gesture to it.

"Just take it with you, and I'll help you with it later or somethin'. C'mon!" she grabbed my hand, and I again walk while she jogs.

When we walk into Georgie's, he grins, "I hope you're going to like this!" he says warmly.

I like Georgie. Nice guy.

"What is it?" I ask, pulling a chair over and sitting down. Gwenivin is hopping up and down, but that's not necessarily strange for her.

Georgie pulls out the most elegant invitation you will ever behold in your lifetime, and Gwenivin squeals, "I KNEW IT!"

I swear, I have no fucking idea what's happening.

Georgie grins to me, sees my blank face and he laughs, "It's an invitation to cater and entertain the Maximo Caeleste Prandium.

What.

I don't know if i should nod or what the hell i'm doing, so i wait for an explanation.

Gwenivin pulls a chair over and crashes her knees into mine in attempt to scoot closer without her little feet touching the ground, and says, "it's the Grand Celestial Dinner! It's...every ten years i think, and the Heavenly Guard comes down to have dinner in purgatory. We've catered it every year, but i've never gotten to do it before!"

"What's the Heavenly Guard?"

This time, Georgie answers.

"they're the angels that protect heaven and all of it's realms. High-rank angel military meeting sort of thing. They sit down, eat, socialize with one another, and then they discuss the social and civil order in the realms. It's huge and private; if you break in it's punishable by destruction."

"yay!" i say.

Gwenivin squeals. _Again. _And so it's set. I'm playing the Maximo Caeleste Prandium on the Twenty-fifth of August. It's July thirtieth right now, by the way. And also, it's still cold. The lakes still frozen solid, and yes, the waterfall is still a waterfall. This place never is less weird than it started out.

Gwenivin does help me take my fence stuff up to my house at the top of the cliff and she helps me set it up. It takes several hours, and I've only got the posts up now, but I always feel a little less annoyed with the kids who never fail to come up to my yard at night. I keep my lights off, and pretend I'm not home.

The lady who took me here originally claimed that the house seals it so it cannot be broken into once it belongs to someone. She wasn't kidding. They've tried getting in, breaking windows. They can't do it. My house is the indestructible fortress of Heaven. Or purgatory. I don't know even know where i am. Haha.

I'm in my office right now, which is lit by small lamps and only holds my desk with a chair, and a baby grand piano painted a nice pearl color. I'm practicing the music Georgie gave me for the upcoming dinner. It's a level ten. Ten years of playing is what that means. I sigh a lot while looking at this. It's all eighth and sixteenth notes, and i have to take it at half tempo, but I'm getting it, or at least the first page.

I do feel honored though; culturally there is a dance that is used so much, it could be said it's a secondary language. It's ancient, and the the music is called the Celestial Waltz, and i'm playing it at the most exclusive dinner party in the universe. Pretty cool, huh? But it's bitter sweet. It has to be perfect, and it's three and a half pages at 140 bpm (beats per minute) Seriously? why couldn't it be a nice slow song? God.

Every once and awhile the kids, who apparently are like moths and flock to light, knock on my windows and laugh. I hate them.

But i'm worried that if i confront them they'll start me on fire too. So I get the first page down at 90 bpm, which is a little more than half speed, then go to bed, but leave the light on in my study. They're idiots. They'll stay where the light is and perhaps not even think about me having a bedroom.

My wings, by the way, are shedding lots of fluffy white feathers and so my house is swarming with what appears to be snow. It's actually my feathers.

So goodnight. :)

So today, me and Gwenivin both had a day off, and since it's a saturday, she doesn't have school, and so we finished my fence. It's a nice wooden picket that stands maybe seven feet tall. It's in the shape of a big box, and with the way my house is positioned, I can still see the entirety of the city below and forever beyond. Its nice. I'm already making plans in my head of the green grass and the benches or something. Gwenivin enjoys it too.

So I have a fence.

**Gwenivin's POV.**

Andy's never in town. Lame. There's lots of cool stuff here! but instead he's always up in his _lair _with his piano, practicing for the days he works. I think he's depressed. Can angels be depressed? I wouldn't know.

Maybe he was already depressed before he died, and it's just carried through to the afterlife. I couldn't even guess though, he doesn't openly talk about his life before death, and I'm afraid if i ask, I'm going to be told he was a serial killer or something.

So I just roll with it. We put up a fence a few weeks ago to keep out a few stupid kids, and when i'm over there we don't talk about them having bugged him, nor do i hear them anymore. That's always good.

I've officially began a sudo summer break since i believe an entire year of school is a bit extensive, so i've been helping Andy situate his yard. It has grass now.

He needs some guy friends or something though. Maybe i'll force him to come into the city one of these days when I get together with mine or something.

I'm actually on my way up to his house with my ice skates. I love them. I've been skating since i was four. That's almost eight years on earth and lots more here. I died when i was twelve by the way.

Bubonic plague. It sucked.

But who cares right? I guess it was my time to go, and so I'm here, walking up to Andy's new gate and unlocking it. He's out, wearing a weird floral shirt and some shorts, watering his new grass that i can't walk on yet.

He see's me and smiles. I show him the skates and he turns off the water.  
"Will you come skate with me?" i ask. I'm kinda begging. We've been friends for six months, and i've never seen him on blades.

"I don't know how to figure skate." he reminds me.

"So learn." i argue.

"Now? I don't even own skates." he tries.

"Yes you do. I got you a pair. C'mon!" I grab his big ol hand and pull him. And guess what? He follows!

As we're heading down the way, he asks, "you know my shoe size?"

I shrug. I do, but not because I'm creepy or anything. I help him clean a lot, and he has a really big problem trying to put away his size 13 shoes, so I know, because i see them alot more then i should.

I stop by my own house and take the big skates out of my closet. I hand them to him, and lead him to the trail that takes you down to the lake.

He's always really quiet when he gets into the city, and so i think of something to say that might spark his interest.

"not a lot of people come down here." i sigh dramatically. I don't know why, but whenever i say something like this, he asks a follow up.

"Why?"

See. Maybe it's the accent. "There's a really creepy story that goes along with it." I say.

He froze just for a second then continued walking, and i knew i'd gotten him

"what's the story?" he asked quietly.

I smile to myself. But then he walks fast and catches up to me and I pretend like i stubbed my toe and my pain equals out to a creepy smile.

"My Professor told me that the lake is frozen forever because it's been used for evil before." i tell him.

"what evil could a lake be used for?" he asks.

"I think it used to be a window back to Earth, you know? Like the angels would look down on it from heaven and protect the planet, but an Archangel decided he like Earth enough to want to be a part of it, so he broke through the lake into the physical world, and fell to earth, which is why the lake is now frozen. If it were open, it would be nothing but a massive opening to Earth. The speculation is the ArchAngel was believed to make a mistake, so they found him on earth, only to discover he was more evil than good. So he was destroyed and the lake was sealed to prevent others like him from trying the same stunt." I explain to him.

He's not saying anything. Maybe I lost him. I turn and walk backwards to see him staring down at his moving feet. Is he gone? He suddenly looked up at me and laughed, "that's a pretty cool story."

No he's still here. I hand him the skates and lead him right down to the beach of the frozen lake and put mine on.

He follows my lead. I'm so excited!

"make sure they're tight enough they won't fall off." I tell him.

He doesn't say anything but he follows my instructions and tightens them a little more. I glide out onto the ice and he stares at me like i'm crazy and he want's to go home. Doctor, we're losing him.

I hurriedly got back onto the frozen ground and grabbed his hands. I backed out onto the ice again and I instructed him on how to stand, and told him to focus on the way his feet are and not to try and move...yet.

He still stared at me with a shut-up face, but he did as I said and walked out onto the ice. He starts sliding on the ice, away from the ground. He throws his head over his shoulder and sees it running from him, and thus i see his full body tense up. He's so cute.

I take a step, and pull him farther away from the edge of the lake and his ground, and his face of Shut-up-Gwenivin that he's been wearing since we left the city turned into don't-let-go-of-me-Gwenivin.

It's awesome, this is awesome.

I'm rude, and this is terrible, but I took one hand away from him to see what would happen, and he actually _lunged_ after it like i'd just taken away something that kept his non-heart beating.

I laughed a little bit and i got this glare that was not very nice at all. Oooh, kitty can scratch.

I told him how to propell with the skates, and i made him practice with me in front of him, then i let go. Backed my but up maybe twetyh feet and made him skate to me.

I think he thinks i'm making him do this so we can have more things to do because _i _get bored, but actually, I'm making him do this so _he _has an outlet. I don't think his house is as important as he thinks it is. I think is just a way to forget about being lonely all of the time with nothing but him and that big piano of his.

I think he's getting a little annoyed with my tactics, because every time he gets to me, i back up farther and farther. i teach him how to turn, how to stop, how to glide and go backwards, then I skat next to him and go around the lake.

He's acting all macho and like he's bored doing this, but you can see how proud he is when he makes the proper turns.

He tells me he _used _to play hockey and skated that way. No. It's not even the same thing. Obviously. And it's been a while. And he's now about two hundred pounds heavier and has twenty foot wings. I'm teaching him no matter what he says.

We end up skating on the lake for nearly two hours until we're both hungry enough to leave, and then we go to my house, which is strange, cuz i like his house better than my own, and i think he does to, but we end up in mine, probably because it's closer and we're cold and starving.

I think he's needed something like ice-skating for a long time. He's always stuck in his office playing the piano or working in his yard, his house.

I don't know what he did before, but it couldn't be anything as weird as being a hermit.

**Andy's POV: 29 days later (August 24th) **

I guess you could say Gwenivin's gotten to me because my at-home schedule has been greatly reduced despite the level ten music, which, by the way, i can play backwards now at double speed.

I now actually spend a lot of time skating with her, trying restaurants, hiking. Things. People things...or angel things i guess. Thinking of being an angel is easier now, I'm less annoyed by people. I think time and attention has aided me.

I've tried being Gwenivin's friend's friend, but they're all annoying as hell and think i'm "pretty" so I've gone off into the world and made my _own _friends. I don't know how, honestly, but I met this girl, Terra. She's like 5'8 and brunette and a hardcore lesbian. Seriously. Anyway, Terra works for the kitchen Georgie partners with to fund the catering company and stuff. They're the ones that actually prepare the food we set up and what not. She's great. And hillarious. For example. I told her my name was Andy. She asked what it was short for, I told her Andrew.

She didn't like Andy, not because she's a dick or anything, but because everyone else was doing' it, so now she calls me Drew. Which is like the special part of my name that is horribly neglected, if you ask her. I think Terra said she was born in New York in the forties and lived her entire life pretending to be straight.

That's around seventy-five years married to a man that had no idea she was gay. Her children had no idea, grandchildren even. It's so sad to think you could live so long pretending to be something you're not. that it makes me and my stupid car-crash story feel like shit.

She said in her will she asked her children to tell her husband that he married a dike, and then high five him. Normally i would think she's joking, but Terra _is _kinda that way, and she said she had a great relationship with her husband even though he was straight.

She actually has a wife here now. Her name is Katherine and we call her Kat. She's really sweet and _really _sarcastic. It great.

Then through Terra and Kat, I met a guy named Toni who's really buff and blond and has brown eyes and he's really hyper and sometimes i'm scared if i stand too close to the edge of the cliff by my house, he might accidentally push me off. And though I have wings, I've yet to fly. So.

Despite this, he's a great guy, Died at like age seventy and he fought in World War II. He kinda reminds me of a really spunky, sweaty Captain America who probably eats double his bodyweight every day. His best friend is a really calm dude named Matt and he's black, and from the slave days, so you probably could guess how his life was, but nevertheless he's really nice.

And then there's the twins. Irish, midgets, rowdy, hilarious, jokester twins named Gary and Garth. They like to pick me up and fly away.

I have to watch my back.

I'm not sure if Gwenivin likes these people or whether or not they like Gwenivin, but I think they're all great and I want them to get better acquainted with Her.

It'd be awesome.

And of course, the Maximo Caeleste Prandium is tomorrow. I'm actually currently at the ballroom helping everyone in the kitchen and the catering company set up the decorations and what not. I've heard they're bringing in a grand piano made of pearls and gold for me to play, so that's awesome, but i have yet to see it, so maybe not.

Gwenivin is the shortest person here, and yet she's the one up on the ladder, putting up hang-y crystal things. I think Georgie is holding it still. Me and Terra are setting up the little round table that are made out of granite or something; they're like two-hundred pounds each. And we need to bring in fifty of them.

Each of these tables seat about four or five people. Fifty tables, times five equals around two-hundred and fifty members of the heavenly guard. Trust me, I've checked.

That means there's gonna be two hundred and fifty angels stomping around to my song, five hundred feet. I've performed in front of humans. I've performed in front of the angels of Purgatory, but my god i've never even seen a heavenly angel disregarding Gabriel and the girl that took me to my house, because my guess is if they're put people into their estates, they probably aren't on the heavenly guard.

So you could say I'm a little nervous looking at all of the tables and the chairs.

Terra and Kat set up things where they have everyone step on bubble wrap or clap or jump around and yell and break things while i play to prepare me, but somehow I don't think a seventy-five year old lesbian dancing like a chicken and bocking is _quite _as intimidating as armed angel-soldiers.

Just saying.

I was given a new outfit for this event, and it's seriously the first time i've seen the color black in like seven months.

It's like a black tailcoat, and black slacks, and a black button up, with a deep blue vest and a white bowtie. And white gloves. yes. I am indeed Alfred from Batman. Deal with it.

Terra was given boys clothes since she rarely even does her make-up, and since she's a waitress, she is dress a little differently than me. Black slacks, black button up and white tie all the same, yes. But instead of a vest, she has white suspenders, and no jacket, or gloves. None of the girls wearing dresses have gotten their cloths yet. It makes Gwenivin nervous about the event, but it is what it is.

We finish setting up and I set out for my home with Gwenivin my side. Sometimes i feel self conscious about her because always feel like she's staring at me.

Which is always awkward because i think she's short enough to be eye level with my ass. So, you know. Before we left, everyone was given the rest of their uniforms and they're all black, even Gwenivin's dress.

I think she's just going to sleep at my house tonight so tomorrow we can get up and get there on time together. So we're eating right now in front of the radio which is playing classical music: the only genre of music that exists here. At all.

I have a guest room but it's basically become her room. Which is cool because she' my best friend, but i'm pretty sure she's got a crush on me. It's awkward.

Anyway, I'm in _my _bed and i'm going to sleep. My heart is super racing though; I don't think i've ever been this nervous to perform before.

Goodnight cruel nerves.

**August 25th.**

Good morning, I'm in the shower right now and so is Gwenivin. But...not in this shower, she's in the other shower, in the other bathroom and we're not showering in the same shower. Shut up.

I'm actually getting out and attempting to towel off my whole body, including my twenty foot long wings that like to avoid the towel. Gwenivin's probably done. or not. I don't care.

I finally get my wings dry and stalk out of the bathroom into my bedroom, where i put on the very nice suit I was provided. I feel like out of all of the other uniforms, mine is the most elegant. It makes me feel a little special, to be completely honest, and I stand in front of my window which is the only reflective surface in the entire house, and comb my hair back with some gel. I'm really Alfred now. Angel Alfred.

I walk out into the kitchen and begin making something to eat. Toast. Coffee. Eggs. You know.

Gwenivin runs out in her dress and she's struggling with knee high black nylons and little shoes, and her hair is kinda wavy which, i've discovered, what is the way her hair is naturally, and asks me to make her toast too. So begin this as she pulls her shoes on her feet and goes back into the bathroom to fix her hair or something.

By the time she's fixed her hair I've gotten her eggs and toast on a plate and I'm on my couch looking out of the window and munching. I'm fucking weird. I've got my music folder on my lap and i'm looking over the notes. she sits down next to me and begin to eat as well.

"what did you do before you died?" she asked randomly.

I finished the bte it was taking and then took a breath, "i was a rock-star."

She looked confused. I knew she would. She died in the eighteen hundreds i believe, and there were _no _rockstars then.

i reiterate, "A singer."

She seemed pleased by this, "that's really interesting."

She's really happy about this. It somehow no longer matters to me.

I nod, "yeah, my girlfriend was a _really _talented singer." i muse.

She seems offended by Juliet. I guess i won't talk about her? I don't know.

So anyway, we walk down to Georgie's and check in, set everything up, get food laid out, lighting perfected, doors open, everything smelling nice and perfumy. We went over procedure after procedure after procedure, "massaged the kinks out of our company" if you ask Georgie.

By the time we were done setting things up and in our positions The doors are being pulled open, but there is no one there. Until...there are. All of the sudden, there are hundreds of Angels that begin to file in and converse wildly.

I do as we planned and sit at the piano, welcome them over a microphone Georgie set up for me, then play Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven.

They all find tables, and seem to have no preference for who they sit by, they simply find a chair, man, woman, black, asian, hispanic white, they didn't even look at eachother half the time when selecting a table, just sat down.

This is weird and I'm not sure if this is normal, but they're all so beautiful. Everything, down to the color of their eyes, is like it came from a fairytale, and i cannot believe how much their skin shines; they look like edward cullen if he were actually worth something.

Their faces held no emotion, they even blinked like they were full of nothing, no emotion. Some of them drank wine, so of them conversed quietly with the people they'd inadvertently sat down next to, and others watched me with little in their eyes.

I feel like I'm performing in front of the world's largest congregation of beautiful paintings. this is terrifying.

Still, my hands are steady despite my breathing and my vision, and my heart if it were beating.

Luckily it's not.

Everything is just a massive conversation right now, there is no order, no peace. Some of the angles are taller than me, and their wings take up a large portion of the floor on their own. There are armored ones, robed ones, ones dressed like kings and queens, more casually attired ones.

The angels of purgatory are easily picked out like an acne covered teenager standing next to a celebrity. I can see Gwenivin hopping around from table to table with trays and drinks and her little body has to weave in and out of flailing wing and massive armored angel arms. She must be freaking out; i'm pretty sure she gets really easily intimidated by people taller than her, and every archangel is on the tall side.

As I'm banging away at the piano keys (I'm playing Anitra's Dance by Edvard Grieg, adapted for piano) the noise begins to mesh until it sounds like a massive choir, and it's halfway amazing, halfway terrible, and one angel, a woman, tall, dark hair, light eyes, shimmery, walks over to me and leans against the piano on the side that is opened to the strings and hammers. She's got a cold face, she purses her lips as a natural expression but she's not watching me, she's watching the hammers. They're moving pretty fast, i believe, as Anitra's Dance is not a slow song, and she seems to keep up with them.

I don't look at her since she's not looking at me and when I finish the song, i pull up a new one. It's Grande Valse Brillante by Chopin and i really love this song.

I announce that it is a waltz and suggested a dance if they wanted.

Then I prepared for the music. As i played the first notes i looked up at and caught eyes with the angel that stood in front of me who had began to stare. I smile, like I'm told to do if a bystander watches me, and continue watching.

As I'd suggested, many of the angels got up and began to waltz together. The room was nearly silent, and so my piano seems very loud even though I'm only playing mezzo piano, but no one seems disturbed by it, so I continue, and eventually I hear someone said, "You play like a human."

I look up in confusion and meet eyes, once again with the angel who's been standing at my piano, only now she's smiling. It's kinda scary.

I didn't pause in my playing, but i wondered if that was an insult in the angel world. I furrowed my brows and asked, "Excuse me?" as politely as i could.

"A human? Anthropina?" she repeated.

I'm now confused as to what language the word Anthropina comes from.

"what does that mean?"

"The word or the expression?" She asks.

"the expression. I assume the word is another way to say human." i say.

she nods, "it is. The expression is not an insult, if that's what you're wondering. In heaven we say you do something like a human if you do it with adaption, emotion; if it is flawed, like the human race is."

"Flaw is bad?" i ask.

She looks at me in amusement, "do you believe emotion is bad?"

"A don't, actually, but i'm not familiar with Angel beliefs." i inform her.

She nods, "Neither are many angels."

Is she trying to make a joke? She has no emotion but i laugh and she seems pleased.

She watched my hands for a moment, then says, "So you play human, you look angel, but you're neither on earth or in heaven?" she half asked, half stated.

"I'm in purgatory. Angel of purgatory." I remind her.

She sighs, "Is that what they've told you?"

I wonder what she means, and want to ask, but she stepped over my wings and walked back to her table where he took up a partner's hand and began to dance for the last part of the song.

After the dance, A very big angel, fully armored, walks over and asks to use my microphone, and tells me i am dismissed for the moment, and to go eat.

Thanks dad.

I stand, and bow to him like we were all taught to do, and then walked around his wings as he calls the rowdy elegant mass of feathered creatures to attention and greets them.

On the way back to the kitchen I catch they eye of the angel lady from before and she eyes me like i stick out from the rest of the crowd. I smile, walk past her table, and bow like four times to get past some angels. I make it into the kitchen. Gwenivin and Terra are already here, eating there food while sitting on one of the metal counted. I take off my tail-coat and dish up the food i want, then lean on the same counter and sigh.

"Angels are terrifying." Gwenivin informs me.

I laugh, and nod my head.

We can still hear the agenda, the armored angel is still speaking and the only thing he's saying is the weather in the realms is nice, which is apparently pertinent enough to be part of a big military meeting for archangels.

I push Terra over and climb up on the counter next to her. I loosen the bow tie and take the vest off. It is very hot in here.

We're listening to the agenda, and eating, and kinda laughing at the things the angels feel they need to bring up, but then we hear a voice, one that i recognise. Cold, Analytical, the same voice that accused me of being human and angel at the same time, but couldn't accept angel of purgatory as the explanation.

The question had been, "Alessa, will you address the breach?"

I wonder what had been breached.

The angel apparently named Alessa answered, "Ourania Epi Kefalis, a threat was detected this year in one of the heavenly realms. The detection is still present, the threat is still here, but it is not strong enough to tell on which plain it is on, or who it may be. "

"Something bads gotten into paradise, i guess." Terra comments.

I smirk, and keep listening.

"what is the threat of?" someone asks.

There is a large moment of silence. Deep concern could be felt in the air, and finally response was, "Rebellion."

There was a tense silence afterward and then the follow up, "An uprising..."

There was a quiet murmur, and Terra was no longer making snide comments.

"when?" Asked another angel.

"That is Alessa's sector." and with that, i assume Alessa was welcomed up to the front, because her voice came in through the speakers saying, "The threat was measured, and it is not very prevalent, our steps to neutralize the threat have been to appoint a more in depth government in the realms. If we play our cards correctly, the rebellion can be avoided completely." there was a small rumble of applause, and Alessa said a few more things and I put my vest, and my coat, and my gloves back on, tightened my tie, and went out to play the final song.

It was the three page Celestial Waltz, and everyone begins dancing.

Then, towards the end of the song, Gwenivin approaches me with pale, sweaty face. She says she overheard Alessa speaking when she was cleaning up the buffet.

She had said that the threat that they had detected, had since began to gather speculations. Those speculations could not be proven due to the nature of the Threat, but there were many a creature's whispering about how the threat now resided in 2309 River Drive, which is, inevitably and ironically, the house of sins renowned in the city, the house that kids like to try and burn down, the house now fenced in with a brown stained picket fence.

That is _my _house.

_I _am the Threat.


	7. Chapter Seven: StableUnstable

**Chapter Seven…**

Sylliphus.

Andy's POV.

I am not a threat.

I'm not dangerous, I don't even think I'm cool. Still a rally of angel soldiers are speculating that I _am _the threat? That's just silly! What am I going to do, grow flowers at them? I can't even fly.

I left De Maximo Caeleste Prandium believing this was nothing but speculation and I could almost laugh at it. Gwenivin, of course, was much less casual about the ordeal. She left sweating and pale, and she kept telling me I needed to be more worried. I'm not. I don't think i have the capacity to feel worry anymore. I'm emotionally empty, to be blunt. Still just a walking corpse, or a robot; i have no emotion. You can't even call me depressed; I feel no sadness.

Perhaps I've been forced to be a sociopath through the events of the past and this is the threat, considering most serial killers, indeed, are very fucked up AND sociopaths.

I go home thinking everything in my android-angel-life is normal and read a little, then go to sleep under the impression i would wake up to the same normalites of yesterday.

Turns out, i was wrong. Go figure.

Gwenivin showed up with Terra by her side. They walk in. No knock. eh. They seem preoccupied; they both have something on their mind that is causing the concerned looks on their faces and by the looks of it, it's not good.

I watch them as Terra flops down on my couch in her lumberjack flannel shirt and distressed blue jeans, and as Gwenivin walks into my kitchen and rummages through my fridge before she pulled out something, begins to eat it, and sits down next to Terra. For a skinny girl, she really likes to eat.

I sit down on my favorite chair and look at them expectantly, "What happened?" i ask.

"Sylliphus." Terra says as-a-matter-of-factly.

"What's a Sylliphus?" i ask.

"Not a what." Gwenivin says, "Who. The angels are dictating a new Government here; they brought in some kid named Sylliphus to do it. Apparently he's really good at what he does, and he has the entire Arch-Angel army behind him."

"Jesus." I say.

"You can say that again. He's like twelve, and here to "neutralize the threat before it can even become a threat." Terra mocks a child's voice and pounds her fist into her other hand's palm.

I thought they were kidding…

"are there any new laws?" i ask.

Gwenivin swallows a large amount of food and shakes her head, "not yet. But soon…" she lets me know.

Jeez. Anyway, we all three work today, I guess Terra is transferring over to Georgie's as the company's token chef and she starts today, so I put on my work cloths and grab my music, and Gwenivin changes into her dress in my bathroom. We all walk down together, and see that there are Arch Angels walking down the streets in pairs of two. Patroll? We've never had a police system here; we've never needed one. I guess this Sylliphus guy is more paranoid than our former government, which had just been a citizens democracy. We all voted for laws and whether a building should be put where this park used to be or not... No one ever saw anyone else as reason enough to need law enforcement.

But now, as we're walking down the back roads to Georgie's little threshold, we catch sight of two massive angels strong hauling a man out of a little shop with an eviction notice. What's happening? This city doesn't evict. We could hear the talking to him, "you're under arrest for the possession of illegal paraphernalia,"

We walk a little faster past him as the man pleads and then gets flown off, one arm in each angel's massive hands. As soon as they're gone, we run to Georgies, and crash in.

"What the _hell _just happened?" Terra asked loudly.

See, i'm not the only one here who swears.

Georgie drew his shades, which is something he never does unless we're closed, and leans up against his desk, his little feet crossed, his brow creased.

"That man was a friend of mine." he sighed, and looked at the thin razor slits of light that filtered through the blinds.

"What would he have done that's illegal?" I ask.

Georgie looks at me, is he worried? "He's a demon smuggler. He brings up technology from earth, with the help of demons, and even smuggles demons out of hell into earth. He sells very dangerous items, and illegal texts. Big time offence, but it was just something that we ignored because we needed his goods."

"what texts would be illegal?" i ask.

"Mostly really old ones," it was Gwenivin who spoke this time, "they're outlawed here because a lot of them have things about the history of this place that's "dangerous" or a-moral. Probably old guides and stuff too...i learned in my Universal Civ. class that people used to have books with instructions in them of how to get to heaven, how to get to hell, how to make deals with demons, how to get to earth, how to resurrect the dead. All that fun stuff."

My stomach twists with emotion for the first time in a long time, and it shows on my face. There's ways to get back to earth? I've never found any form of distress with having left earth, nor having to stay in Purgatory; i've never even cried once over the loss of my parents, of my friends, of Juliet, or rather, their losing me, but suddenly all of this comes back to me, and it _hurts. _In fact, it's unbearable, i fall to my knees. There are ways back to earth. I can't tell if i'm happy or sad, it's so confusing! I've never even considered getting back to earth, i've just taken what i've been given and gone from a rockstar to a piano playing pansy who plants flowers all day long. I've never questioned it, and suddenly i feel embarrassed and cheated by this. I know in the past i said i wanted my emotions back, but i don't, TAKE THEM, PLEASE! I feel like i'm spinning by the time i realize Gwenivin is kneeling by me, crying for some reason, asking me if i'm dying.

And just like that, my emotions disappear again. They get sucked up inside me like dirt into a vacuum, and i'm a robot again. "Why are you crying?" I ask.

"What? Because you look like you're hurt! are you okay? did you get shot?" she asks.

I look up to see Terra and Georgie looking just as concerned but maybe less irrational.

"No, I haven't been shot. I just got dizzy." i say. you would think this would comfort her, but she's even more flustered now.

Terra pulls her away, "step aside, red-carpet, I've got this."

"Got what?" i ask. She presses on my wrist, takes my pulse, has me open my mouth, and she peers at my throat, then looks into my eyes and concludes that i was probably just scared and possibly in shock from seeing some dude get arrested, then boastfully adds that she's a medical major to the end of all of that.

"thanks doc." i say, and stand up from my spot on the ground.

She's wrong, really wrong, but no one needs to know that except me.

Georgie has me trade in my music from the Maximo Caeleste Prandium and gives me a new assignment. The Beatles, The Animals, Nick Cave and the Bad seeds, Moody Blues, arrangements for my piano of all of their most famous songs. There is a nineteen year old boy turning twenty and his dad's favorite music on Earth was from these old bands. Yep. They say he died in a car accident, just like me, and that he's the son of a mortician, who ironically outlived his son, and maybe, according to speculation, was embalmed by his own father. I don't necessarily know about that, but regardless of the truth behind these stories, we're catering his party in two weeks.

For this, i'm given a deep blue colored suit jacket, and another pair of more casual black slacks, with a blue tie and a white shirt, new shoes, black socks. The best part of this job is the fact that Georgie somehow gets ahold of black clothing and i love it.

Terra is basically given the same thing as me, except her jacket is a "Blazer" according to Gwenivin, and she gets a little bow to put in her hair, and gwenivin gets a blue skirt, and a white shirt, and black tights. On top of this party we need to prepare for, we have a wedding dinner we're catering today. Weddings here are weird. This place has it's own culture, and i'm not really involved with it at all, but it's interesting.

We all get dressed in our nice attire and flock off to the site of the wedding to prepare. There is a very large white piano that i'm playing on, i guess.

By the time everyone shows up, we've been ready for like an hour, and we get into character to cater to their every need. I start playing my music that i was presented as everyone gets seated and the groom stands in front of a little pool of water shaped like a heart.

Gwenivin always looks so silly running around because i think people forget she's there sometimes and so they almost always attempt to step on her and thus she's always wiggling around them.

I'm looking at my reflection in this white-ass piano while i'm playing and I catch sight of an eerie glow. I turn, and there is a kid, a boy, maybe ten at most. He's got dark, dark brown hair and olive skin that would probably be tanned if he wasn't looking pale and pasty with slightly blue lips. He's got sharp shoulders, his feet are spaced out proudly, and to his left, and to his right there are angels, both standing two, maybe three feet taller than him. He's staring at the wedding with his arms crossed and he looks bored.

"_That's _Sylliphus!"

I jump. It's Terra, she's holding a sandwichs and her "blazer" is around her waist.

"what are you doing here?" i ask.

"i'm on break." she tells me and pushes me over the best she can without messing up my playing.

I nod, "so that's Sylliphus?" i ask.

"Yes. He's creepy with a capital weird. I don't even think he's old enough to buy spray paint on his own and he's in charge of the city?" she asks skeptically.

"not to mention an enormous angel army." i add.

she nods, "that too."

she bites into her sandwich, and stares cryptically at him.

"He's going to see you." i say to her.

She glances at me, "you think? Do you think he'll kill me?"

"How would he kill you? You're already dead..." I ask.

She sighs, "you're right, i'm beginning to sound like Red Carpet."

I laugh. She calls Gwenivin this on account of her hair color and the assumption that the carpet matches the drapes, thus, red carpet.

"a little," i agree.

Slowly Sylliphus's head turns to look at us talking almost as if he could hear us and instinctively, the angels heads turn too. I feel paralyzed for a moment. He's standing far away, i can barely see him, but his face and eyes look nothing like a normal kids. Not that he physically looks strange, he just looks...mean. Judgmental, analytical; no mercy. I guess that's what the Angels see best fit for our small town where the only threat is a guy that plays piano for weddings and locks himself in his house for the rest of the day.

"why do you think he's here?" Terra asks, staring back at him with no shame.

"a weddings a big thing, i bet he's here to create an image for himself." i say. Terra is still staring at Sylliphus, but I don't think he notices her, or cares. In fact, i don't thinks he's looking at her; i think he's looking at me.

"You should get back to work," i encourage her as she finishes her sandwich and wipes her hands on the inside of her jacket that she puts back on her shoulders. She nods in agreement and waves to me as she returns to her station.

I turn away from my view of Sylliphus and begin to play again. Just in time. Maybe two minutes later, The bride walks out. Wedding dresses here are strange. They're all really old and inherited from generations of marriages, and if you have to buy a new dress, then it's considered an omen of bad luck, and everyone begins to assume that the marriage is going to fail. Sometimes they do. Just like normal marriages. They also wear a token of what kind of angel their husband is if he's from heaven. In purgatory, it's usually got something to do with what their job is, or their hobby, or what they're good at. This girl is wearing flowers in her hair, and her dress looks brand new. Marriage failure right there. Flowers are the default when you're husband has nothing interesting to give his bride, and the new dress...i bet everyone looking at her is shaking their heads when no one is looking.

So basically this wedding takes twelve years and then i get to stay for another twelve years to clean up the mess all of them made so by the time i get home, it's dark and the reflection of the lake is like a neon light. You know, sometimes it's strange, but it appears to me like there's something moving under the ice. Something big. Maybe there's a squid in there, i don't even know, but honestly it wouldn't surprise me if there was, this place is so fucking weird.

Anyway, i retreat to my office, and play the piano for like ten minutes before i realize i don't want to play the piano anymore after having played a waltz eight times so the bride and groom could dance again and again and again...

I take myself into my living room, and see the two perpetually locked doors. One leads to a room that is definitely attached to my house, we know that for sure, the other, leads somewhere I'm not at liberty to say.

And now, for the first time since it happened, I get to worry over what happened to me in Georgies store. I pull my most cush chair into the center of my living room and sit down with a soda, since beer here is about as easy to come by as 14 carat gold deer turds. I look at the back of one of four mirrors in this room, and think. I never feel emotions, when i do they're simple. Easy. It's like I have a receptionist in my brain, and he sits there day and night, Okay, you'll see anger now, okay, you'll see fear now. I sit down and have a decent conversation with my feelings over a couple of cold ones and we go our separate ways, and my mental receptionist sends in my next one. But this time, it was like my fake receptionist tied every emotion he could come up with to a 10,000 pound anvil and threw it at my face. It brought me to my knees and i'm not usually one for praying (ha).

I wonder what changed. Maybe this is what happens when you become an angel.

Shitty.

…

I try to sleep tonight, but i'm too interesting in things. There are two doors in my house that cannot be opened. I want to know what's in them. There are four mirrors in every room of my house that will never see daylight. I want to know _why._ I want to know why Sylliphus is here, and why archangels are arresting people, and what is under that fucking lake and why I'm suddenly a huge threat with some seriously messed up emotions. All of this makes it impossible for me to fall asleep in more than fifteen minute increments, and by the time the sun comes up, i feel more worn out for waking up and then falling back asleep in cycles, that i wake up, and don't even get up, i just go back to sleep again.

I wake up to little hands shaking me like a british nanny shakes a crying baby (calm down, i'm kidding), and i open my eyes, stunned, to see Gwenivin standing with her feet planted on either side of me, bending down, with her hands on my shoulders, she's got two pairs of ice skates around her neck. Dammit.

"C'mon, let's go." she tells me as she steps away from me.

"Now?" i ask. I'm not moving if i don't have to. That's not necessarily a norm for me; i generally like to be up on time and ready to go for the day, but this time i just want to sleep.

"Yes now!" she pulls me. She's light, it doesn't do much.

"It's too early!" I whine. I hear her grunt and open up one eye to see her pulling my sheets.

"It's noon you big lug! Get up!" She cries.

I sigh and roll out of bed. "I don't wanna do it again!" I whine to her.

"But i do!" She sings. Off key, may i add.

She thrusts a pair of blades that look as big as she is into my hands and runs ahead of me, then stops, like a puppy, at the front door, and waits for me eagerly. I pull cloths on just out of her view: i think if she sees me even without a shirt, she's going to explode. I run my fingers through my hair, put on a coat and some shoes, and follow her out, down the friggin marathon that is the hike to the city from my home, and then she takes me down to the ice.

You don't ever get used to being by this lake. It's beautiful, and that story that Gwenivin tells me every time we see it: earth is a straight shot from purgatory, it makes me want to see what's under it. But the ice is ten feet thick, according to legend, and unbreakable except by the sword of an archangel… so...i'm shit out of luck i guess.

She stares me down as I'm putting on the skates she harbors for me, and I stand at the edge of the ice until she gets hers on too. I'm about to take my first step out onto the lake, but I feel this little push on my back, and i realize that Gwenivin has propelled me forwards. I just kinda let the friction of the ice slow me, then sure enough, she pushed me again, and i slide forwards. I turn sorta gracefully, sorta like a moose trying to make sharp turns, and say, "you realize I _can _skate, right?"

She shrugs, "you weren't moving fast enough, so now if you want to get back, you have to actually skate." I sigh.

She starts skating away from me, so i follow her, and i tail her around the lake once or twice, then make my own way through the dead center. There's something eerie about skating in the center of the lake. I'm heavy, but not compared to most angels, and they sustain just fine in the center, but there's something...hollow, and breakable about the middle. It doesn't seem to be water underneath...and i hope that its earth under there. I'm sliding around, when this dick-ass-bitch-head guy knocks me to my hands and knees. This ice is as smooth as glass, so even with my bare hands slowing me down, i slide a good twenty feet farther into the center of the lake, and now I can't seem to find Gwenivin. Initially, this guy looks like the literal incarnation of the incredible hulk. He's blond and has brown eyes, and scratchy, sandy looking skin that's a little greasy looking, if you ask me. He looks like he stands twelve feet tall, and he's not alone. Two other dudes like him stand not far back. I thought when i left highschool, the oily gangs of childish bullies would remain in the past, but i guess purgatory has them too. As i stand, i realize i'm almost half a head taller than him, and, though i'm significantly less buff, my shoulders are about as wide as his, and i don't care enough about him to even ask why he's pushed me, so i turn around and skate away from him.

He calls me a pansy as i'm leaving, i call him a fuck-face. He seems legitimately afraid of my vocabulary, and he stays put as i inch around the lake until i find Gwenivin doing figure eights at a sickening rate. I grab her, and pull her towards the shore that's closest to the city, and she's complaining, but i ignore her. I don't want to be on this ice anymore, and i'm not leaving her here. Suddenly, i'm on my hands and knees again, sliding into the center of the lake. My hands leave a streak on the ice that clears away the foggy nature of its surface, and i can hear Gwenivin screaming at the dudes that pushed me, and I'm pissed off but I can't stand i'm, because i'm staring at the universe. It's an eternal darkness underneath, and there are stars that seem so close that i can touch them. I've seen this image before, through the doors in heaven, but i'm unable to shake this feeling of new amazement as I look down, because i _can _see the earth underneath. It's massive, right under me. I feel as though if i could just break the ice, i could fall right back down to my beloved planet, and purgatory would be a dream. Again, something inside me snaps and this overwhelming sadness takes me over. These dudes are leaving now, i can see their watery shadows in the ice sliding away, and Gwenivin kneels in front of me. I feel so sad, i just want to lay down on the ice and watch the earth. She's asking me if I'm okay and i keep nodding but she asks again like she didn't see me- which i know she did- and finally she gets up. Don't know what she's doing, I look up, she's skating away. I'm alone.

And then this rage, this burst of pure aggression drowns out the sadness and I instinctively bring my fists up in the air and then pound them against the ice as hard as i can possibly manage: i think my wrist is broken, but somehow I made the ice groan and shudder, and then spit up a wave of frost; the trees shook and and the space where i hit, and i'm also sitting on made an empty sounding echo of the noise my fit had created. I now feel embarrassed by my outburst, because the noise attracted the towns folk and they're standing at the banks of the water, looking at me. So, the ice didn't break, but i look down, and there's an impressive looking crack in the surface, and the shuddering and groaning of the lake didn't stop. I'm not sure if i should run or stay put, or slide across like a penguin, I"m at a loss so i just sit there are people stand in a barrier around the lake. I think they're waiting for me to fall through. Then, I see Gwenivin and Terra, followed by her wife, Kat, followed by Toni, followed by Matt, Gary and Garth. I have a friggin army coming to help me off the ice. Nice. So Toni is the first one to get to me, since he has the energy of a nuclear power plant, and he pulls me up by my arm like i'm a rag doll, and begins to drag me at bullet-train speed across the ice, and I'm stumbling along with him, until Matt intercepts him and takes me from Matt, and slows to a walk, and lets me make my own way, despite the fact that he has his hand on my shoulder and he and i both know he's prepared to kidnap me if i try to punch the ice again. By the time I'm halfway to the edge of the shore, most of the people have gone back to their lives, all of my friends are holding on to some part of my body, basically walking for me, and they're all talking to me, talking to each other, arguing about me, then yelling _at _me, then someone is yelling at the about not yelling at me. This is all happening in different levels of whispering. As we are about to pass through the thinning stream of people, we all fall silent; there are three archangels with one of each of their arms holding a shield in front of their chest, the other holding a sword over their shoulder. Standing in the protection of the angels, there was Sylliphus with his hands on his hips, he was staring blankly at the lake. Then he turned suddenly look me right in the eyes. He smiled a coy grin at me, and waggled his finger like a pet owner disciplining his dog. I felt my eyebrows pull together, and his smiled widened, and his hands folded in front of his chest. He turned to say something to one of his three angels, then he was out of my line of vision. I have a feeling now that i can't shake. I am stable, i am unstable. I'll never harm a person, yet i am psychotic. I've attracted the attention of a creepy little kid. Stable/unstable.

I am the Threat.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight…**

**the archaeologist.**

After the incident at the lake, Georgie retracted the amount of music he gave me to learn. Apparently, he thought my behavior was stress induced and didn't want to overload me. I don't think it's stress induced.

He's not giving me any more of a workload then what i had as a rock-star. And i was okay then… Regardless, I'm beginning to feel like i'm fucking crazy.

These emotional flare ups are becoming more frequent and less manageable. The worst part is, i never see them coming. I feel emotionless and robotic like usual, and I'll go through my life doing nothing different, then suddenly, with no real reason, I'll get bursts of emotion that are so intense, i makes it hard for me to function. And lately, at night, it feels like there's someone talking to me. A tiny voice, that never shuts up. Sometimes its whispers. Other times, i feel like it's shouting. I don't know if it's real or a figment of my imagination, and i'm not sure if i should tell anyone i'm hearing voices, accounting for the fact that i just punched a lake.

I just keep marching on, and soon, things begin to normalize again. The flares begin to dull, and the voice becomes easier to ignore at night. Just in time too. I think people were beginning to notice my off behavior. Gwenevin kept trying to hug me. Terra kept making casual psycho jokes. Georgie was slowly but surely lightening my musical load until one day, i'm sure he'd simply stop giving me any at all.

I'm going to that birthday party that i had to learn all of those classical rock songs for. I get there in my new get up, and begin playing a simple Rolling Stones song (paint it black) that everyone knows, even if they've never even heard of rock and roll. Everyone's shows up and socializes then eats, then dances, and the birthday boy blows out candles, same old song and dance. Once all of that blows over, he actually comes to sit nearer to me, and we start talking.

Turns out, his dad it the Coroner that worked on me when I died. How ironic. He's a pretty young guy, and he mentions that he came to talk to me because he knows me from Black Veil Brides, and he asks me how i died. I keep it simple. Car crash. No need to over complicate and scare the kid away. He complimented my playing, i tell him happy birthday, and ask him how he feels about Sylliphus, and he tells me he doesn't trust him. I like this kid. Nice guy.

After the party, we all go back to Terra and Kat's house to eat dinner. It was nice, then we go to their living room to talk, and Terra confesses that she was actually very concerned for me, and that she masked this with humor. Awesome. While we're sitting around, Toni brings up Sylliphus. Everyone is confused whether or not his laws will be good. Half of my friends have a hopeful optimism, this party including Gwenevin, and half of them, this party housed by Terra, believe it's too soon to tell what he could possibly do. I sit there, with my opinion pressed up against my teeth. I hate him. But i'm sure i'm the only one left in Heaven or whatever that still knows what hatred is. Even if he is a great politician, or whatever the reason is that he was put in charge here, i get this feeling, this _stench. _SOmething about that kid doesn't sit well in my stomach, and so i casually ignore the conversation and drink my way through three sodas before i excuse myself from the get together prematurely and walk home. I hope they don't mind. I've just got a lot to force down right now.

I lay in my bed, and stare at the ceiling. For just a second, i'm wondering mournfully what Juliet is up to on earth right now. I wonder how long it's been since my car accident.

I wonder if she's still in our house, if she still sleeps in our bed, i don't know if she's lonely, i don't know if she's let go and the weight of my death no longer drags her down, and i hope selfishly that she's somewhere in between, because i've come to terms with the fact that i simply refuse to be forgotten.

On the same note, I'm wondering what's happened with Black Veil Brides. I'm torn between hoping the guys could carry on without me and employ the services of another angry, baritone voiced asshole, and hoping that there simply could not be a Black Veil without Andy, and that now they're now in a new band that doesn't carry the name i gave it.

I think that, when you're living I mean, there is the perpetual fear that there is nothing after you die. It's just lights out, you're gone. You say your goodbyes, and your mind begins to fade, and then, you're nowhere. Nothing. You can't even call it darkness because having that explanation for it would require you to be awake in some way, shape or form to witness that blackness.

This fear is very real. It tore the best of us to pieces just trying to make sense of it. Now that i'm here, that fear still gets me, but it wears a brand new face. I'm not longer afraid of that darkness. I crave it. Sleep is a god to me. I leave the lights off in my house so i can taste it while i'm awake, and sometimes just continuing to exist makes me sick. My new fear now, is that i may very well have to live for the rest of eternity just scraping by like this.

These thoughts really do only last for a few moments, though they were very loud and bring me to an unexpected conclusion: when something is going badly, you have to change it. That's the only philosophy that rang on hundred percent true throughout my entire life. This change must be brought on by you actually getting off of your ass and doing something.

All this time, i've been sitting in my yard, _planting DAISIES, _feeling sorry for myself. Seriously. If things for me are this bad as i'm thinking they are, there must be a way for me to change them. That's just...the way the universe is, right?

I sit up, and look on through my closed blinds to the tiny slivers of the outside world that are visible. The only issue is how do I change something as permanent as death?

I decide to go to sleep0 and find out a little more in the morning. When the sun comes up, for the first time in a long time, i open up by windows, and switch on my lights. Getting dressed with a new fire inside me, I can hear Gwenivin enter my home. She walks in as i'm doing up by shirt and she seems taken aback by my attitude this morning. I'm eating my regular toast and coffee with her taking down a small village of a meal next to me, and i casually chew, swallow, sip my coffee, then ask, "you're in college, right?"

She looks up, _way _up, to face me, and says, "Yes, i'm in college and i love it, why?"

I shrug, sip coffee again, and ask, "What kind of classes do they offer."

I see her face light up, "all kinds, Andy. To many to name."

"Okay. Do they have like... History classes, or...Earthly theory classes…?"

"You mean like, the human existence class?" she asks.

I feel my heart jump, "they have that?"

She nodds. I nod, over and over and over and over again, eyeing my coffee, until she asks, "Um, are you interested? Because i could get you an appointment with the enrollment office...if you'd like?"

I stand, motionless, quiet, thinking for quite some time, before i nod, and say, "yeah, i'd actually really appreciate that."

She beamed like a fluorescent light bulb and hugged me, "Oh my little giant, coming out of his shell! I'm so glad you're going to go to college with me!"

"Well, that's only if I get accepted." i remind her.

"Oh, they'll accept anyone with a brain," she waved her hand, "I can't wait. I'm going to be on campus today, I'll set it up then!"

She's doing the thing that she does when she shakes and squeals every so often when she's very excited, and she continues to do this all the way down to Georgie's. Gwenivin was definitely not the only one surprised by my new energy. Georgie just kept smiling like an idiot and patting me on the back, and Terra said three words to me, then just stared me down blankly, moving her head from side to side slowly, as if to be sure that I was still here.

It was a basic teen party today, and i played simple ballads and pop songs all night that i never even had to look at before to nail every note, and the girls were all pleased with the party, the food, my piano, and unfortunately, me.

By the time i'm helping everyone pack up at the end of the party, i'd been "accidentally" brushed up against so many times just trying to walk back and forth between the piano and the snack bar that i'm pretty sure my dick is bruised.

Sometimes i could just body slam these people into swamp, but since there are no swamps here, i refrain, and instead just sigh a lot and every so often purposefully hit the keys with too much force then swear, if the area around me becomes too populated. The combination of an abrupt, loud noise caused by an unnecessarily violent action, accompanied by a choice word from my extensive vulgar vocabulary drives people off like you wouldn't believe.

After that party, we don't have anything for the rest of the day, so I walk up the many, many, many stairs to my home and sit in my living

room, feet up on the couch, reading a book, anxiously awaiting Gwenivin's return, which would hopefully carry the time and date for a meeting with the university. This is somewhat of an ironic situation. Of course throughout my life I'd wondered about my decision to drop out of highschool with the hopes of becoming a rockstar. All in all my general conclusion on the matter had always been that for me, going back to school would likely never happen,

Now here we are. It takes several hours for Gwevin to wind up here, in my home, so i actually fell asleep on the couch, waiting. I wake up to Gwenivin sitting on my stomach in an attempt to jar me. I stand up as a reflex and she tumbles down off of me and lands on her ass on the floor.

I'm still laughing as she drags herself to her feet using my arms and I'm still kinda wheezing while she stands before me with her child-sized arms crossed over her body. She was holding a piece of paper and she handed it to me sassily. I find that this paper holds the time and date for a meeting with the enrollment office at the university. The meeting is set for three days from now, at noon. Sweet. I can't wait.

I continue to not be able to wait until the day of, on which i wake up on time, then i dress nicely, and nearly run Gwenivin over as i'm walking out the door while she's trying to walk in. She seems more excited then i am as we walk all the way down my ridiculous flight of stairs, through the city and then well beyond it to a well sheltered area maybe half a mile away from the village and the lake, surrounded by waist high hedges, with a small city of red brick buildings sitting within.

There is a sign bearing the name of the University, and Gwenivin lead me deep into this maze of brick to a structure more short and squat than it's siblings. Once inside, i find a cool, relaxed environment with a desk covered in flyers and a waiting area full of chairs and magazines.

Gwenivin leads me to the desk. Sitting behind it is a young man, possibly a student aid, writing away on some forms. We tell him why I'm here, and he directs me to the sitting area.

After a moment, a woman comes out and tells me we can speak now. I walk back without Gwenivin, and she pulls out some paperwork.

"So, mister biersack," she says, pulling out a pen, "you'd like to enroll in our programs?"

I nod. She looks up at me through a pair of spectacles and though she smiles, i can see the discomfort in her face. I understand. I've seen my reflection. I'm glad that she is making an effort to make eye contact and be nice.

"Yeah, i was wondering about what kind of classes you would offer regarding… humans on earth, traditions, folk stories...?" i ask.

"Oh, you're interested in that field?" she asks, surprised.

I nod.

"Is that right?" she laughs, looking over her papers, "is that right."

She looks for a moment, then says, "you could be a resources major?" she suggests.

I shrug, "what does that mean?"

"It deals with the culture gaps and what not." she says.

I shake my head. She reads me off a few more majors before she looks pleased with herself and then says, "you could major in Archeology and minor in Mythology and theory." she says.

She explains to me that the major, minor combination covers everything from old mythological texts to how the human culture evolved around religion.

We agree on this course, and i fill out the necessary paperwork to enroll. I walk out feeling prideful. Gwenivin asks me how it went and I tell her i've been accepted.

That's right. You're looking at a future archaeologist.


End file.
